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The High Court of Justice. Page 102. 



the 



THREE JUDGES 

STORY OF THE MEN 
WHO BEHEADED THEIR KING. 

BY 

ISRAEL P. WARREN. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION 

By REV. LEONARD BACON, D. D. 




P° 






PUBLISHED BY ^ 

WARREN AND WYMAN, 

13 Bible House, New York. 



^ 3 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 

ISRAEL P. WARREN, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Stereotyped at the Boston Jjtereotype Foundry, 
19 Spring Lane. 

yp. F. Bjrown & Oct., Printers, No. 60 Bromfleld Street. 



7 l*& 



6r 



PREFACE 



In the preparation of this work, it has not been thought 
necessary to note minutely the sources from which its ma- 
terials were derived. The great Revolution of 1640-1659 is 
among the most familiar topics of English history, and is 
recounted at length in all our standard authorities on that 
subject. Of the trial and execution of the King, and the 
barbarous punishments inflicted on such of his judges as 
fell into the hands of his son after the Restoration, detailed 
accounts are given by Nalson, Caulfield, Ludlow, Pepys, and 
many other writers of that day. 

For our knowledge of the events attending the exile of the 
three judges who fled to America, their concealment and 
hardships, and the heroism of the infant colonies in giving 
them a shelter at their own imminent peril, we are chiefly 
indebted to the late President Stiles, of Yale College. He 
investigated the matter with all the industry which its intrin- 
sic interest and his enthusiastic admiration for the venerable 
men who were its subjects, could inspire. Living within less 
than one hundred years of their time, when not a few sur- 
vived whose fathers and grandfathers were personally cog- 
nizant of the facts, he had advantages for ascertaining the 
truth which no subsequent writer could share. Though 

3 



4 PREFACE. 

some of his conclusions have been regarded as fanciful, es- 
pecially the theory of the interment of all three of the judges 
at New Haven, yet his work, in all essential respects, is be- 
lieved to be worthy of entire confidence. 

GofTe's correspondence, and some other matters which have 
come to light since Stiles's History was published, are taken 
from the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 
A few particulars as to the places where the judges were 
secreted, are given from a recent personal visit to those 
localities. 

It has been my aim to make this literally a true story. 
Nothing has been inserted but well-authenticated fact, or 
what has been transmitted to us by tradition. 

The romantic interest of the story of these three fugitives 
from royal vengeance will- not be questioned. Southey 
states that he contemplated writing " an Anglo-American 
Iliad," in which " the main interest will fix upon Goffe 
the regicide, for whom I invent a Quaker son — a new char- 
acter, you will allow, for heroic poetry. The poem itself in the 
first draught is called Oliver Goffe." Poetical .Works, p. 832. 
The traditionary account of Goffe's appearance to aid the 
people of Hadley against the attack of the Indians is made 
a graphic episode in Scott's novel of " Peveril of the Peak." 
In addition to this interest, it is hoped that our young 
readers will find in the narrative a source of instruction in 
the principles of civil. and religious- liberty, and also in that 
highest truth which can alone inspire the deeds that make 
men immortal. 

I. P. W. 



INTRODUCTION 



BY REV. LEONARD BACON, D. D. 



Perhaps no episode in American history ap- 
peals more powerfully to the imagination than that 
of the fugitive judges who had subscribed the 
death-warrant of a king. The romance of the story 
is quite independent of any sympathy with the 
men, or with the cause for which they had fought, 
and for which, in its defeat, they suffered. The 
facts are the same, and the romance of the story 
is essentially the same, whether interpreted by 
sympathy with the men or by antipathy. 

It should not be forgotten that, even at this late 
day, there are those not only in Great Britain, but 

v 



VI THE THREE JUDGES. 

in the United States, whose feelings are on the 
side of " King Charles the Martyr," as he was 
called, till recently, in the calendar of the Church 
of England. They may not be willing to identify 
themselves in all respects with that king's party 
in the conflict which brought him to the scaffold. 
Being Americans, they may reject, very heartily, 
the dogma of the divine right of Charles Stuart to 
govern England at his own free will, and without 
responsibility save to God ; or, being English sub- 
jects, they may honestly profess to believe that 
kings are for the people, and not the people for 
kings, and that the majesty of the law which pro- 
tects the people against arbitrary power is more 
sacred than the majesty of the person who happens- 
to wear the crown ; but by the force of some eccle- 
siastical or religious tradition, or of literary and 
esthetic prejudice, their sympathy is with the king, 
— so grave, so gallant, so unfortunate, — rather 
than with the people in arms for ancient and char- 
tered freedom. In their reading of English histo- 
ry, the heroes of their fancy are Falkland rather 
than Hampden, Hyde rather than Pym, Strafford 
rather than Cromwell, and Laud is to them a saint- 
lier name than Baxter or Owen. Their antipathy 



INTRODUCTION. Vll 

against " roundheads " and " sectaries u colors the 
facts of undoubted history. 

To such minds the story of the ' Regicides in 
New England may have an interest like that of an 
old romance. As the barbarians of Melita, when 
a viper from the heat fastened on the hand of the 
prisoner Paul, said among themselves, " No doubt 
this man is a murderer, whom vengeance suffereth 
not to live," so a reader whose sympathies are 
with the "cavaliers" against the "roundheads," 
may think he sees, in the unspeakable atrocities 
which accompanied the execution of those regicide 
judges who died at Charing Cross, nothing else 
than God's justice against the foulest murder, save 
one, in the history of mankind; and to - him the 
story of those three who escaped beyond the ocean 
may be as romantic as the fable of the Wandering 
Jew. He may think he sees a divine Nemesis — 
slow, but terrible — pursuing them wherever they 
go, on the sea. or the land, among friends or in 
lonely hiding-places, journeying through the solemn 
woods or resting unsuspected under some hospita- 
ble roof, living in obscurity and fear under feigned 
names, or hunted into dens and caves of the earth. 
He may think how they must have been haunted 



Vlll THE THREE JUDGES. 

by the remembrance of their crime — how the 
shadowy image of the king whom they condemned 
to die must have visited their dreams — how the 
ghastly array of that scaffold before the palace of 
Whitehall, with the block, and the headsman, and 
the eyes glaring upon them from the severed head, 
must have risen up before them in the hour of 
death. 

On the other hand, there are readers of history 
who have learned that the great parliamentary 
leaders, in the conflict with Charles I., were men 
to whom England owes a debt of gratitude and 
honor not yet paid in full. To them the story, 
of that " unfortunate king " is the story of a man 
who — whatever may have been his exemption from 
the sway of certain brutish vices, characteristic 
of so many kings, and whatever the royal dignity 
of his bearing among his courtiers — was utterly 
ungenerous and selfish. To them, all his story, 
even to its tragic ending, is the story of a man 
who, instead of regarding his kingly office as a 
trust defined by laws and charters, and to be used 
for the welfare of his countrymen, regarded it as 
a possession to be used according to his sovereign 
pleasure ; and who deliberately attempted to de- 



DfTRODUCTl IX 

stroy that hereditary liberty of his people which 
he had sworn to maintain. In their reading of 
history, that Charles Stuart was a man entirely 
faithless and treacherous, with whom no compact 
could be made which he would not violate at the 
earliest opportunity. Their sympathy, therefore, 
is not with him, nor with the men who fought 
under his standard when he made war upon his 
people. In their view, the true heroes of that crisis 
were the men who most persistently and r 
strenuously opposed the scheme for converting 
the government of England into a despotism like 
that of France or of Spain at the same period. 
As they read and understand the facts, the king 
had been false to his trust, had conspired against 
his people to rob them of their undoubted rights, 
had committed treason against the nation, had 
stained his soul with more than the guilt of a 
thousand murders, when he was arraigned for 
trial. Whatever may be their opinion concerning 
the wisdom or political expediency of dealing with 
him as a criminal, of pronouncing against him 
the sentence of death, and surprising and astound- 
ing the world by the execution of the sentence, 
they can understand that the judges of that revo- 



X THE THREE JUDGES. 

lutionary tribunal . may have acted in the fear of 
God, may have felt the pressure of a public ne- 
cessity for exemplary justice on a royal traitor, 
and may have been impelled by the consciousness 
of duty to their country and to the coming ages. 

If such be our interpretation of the facts, the 
story of the fugitive " colonels," as they were 
called here in New England, while it takes on 
a different color, gains as much of interest as 
it loses. Under that view, the failure of the 
English republic, the succession of a basely dis- 
solute wretch to the throne which his father 
had forfeited, and the return of the cavaliers to 
power, introducing the darkest period of national 
degeneracy and disgrace in the history of Eng- 
land, are no proof that what the " roundheads " 
were wont to speak of in their darkest days as 
" the good old cause," was abhorred of God ; nor 
is the story of those regicides who were " hanged, 
drawn, and quartered" at Charing Cross, and of 
those who escaped into the American wilderness, 
evidence that they were sinners above all men 
that dwelt in England. Those hunted fugitives 
may have been sustained by the belief that they 
had done their duty to their country. If we re- 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

gard them in that light, it is not more reasonable 
to suppose that in their flight, in the years of their 
obscurity, or in their loneliest hiding-places, they 
were haunted by remorseful memory, than to sup- 
pose that Washington, in the tranquil evening of 
his life at Mount Vernon, was haunted by the shade 
of Andrd, and that a terrific vision of that gallows 
at West Point was at his bedside when he died. 

Let us, then, remember how easy it is for 
prejudice and imagination to misinterpret the facts 
of history ; and let us learn not to censure too 
harshly those whose sympathies lead them to 
misunderstand and depreciate historic person- 
ages whom we may deem worthy of honor, or 
to honor personages whom history teaches us 
to abhor. If a Roman Catholic insists that 
Mary, Queen of Scots, was a saint and a martyr 
— if an English tory demands like honor for 
her grandson Charles — if there are some who 
reverently cherish the memory of Laud "Arch- 
bishop and Martyr," — let us not quarrel with 
them ; no, not even if they denounce us for 
not holding their opinion. So, while we read 
the story of the judges who condemned a king 



Xll THE THREE JUDGES. 

to the block, let us remember that the question 
whether they were traitors who deserved to die, 
or Christian patriots who had failed in a great 
endeavor to save their country and to make 
it an abode of righteousness, — is a question on 
which we may err without losing our souls. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Preface iii 

Introduction v 

CHAPTER I. 
Story of the Great Charter. 

The old Stones in New Haven. — Graves of the Judges. — What we 
owe to the Fathers. — Beheading of King Charles. — An astonish- 
ing Event.— Opinion of Carlyle. — What had he done? — English 
Liberties. —Tyranny of the old Kings. — Story of the rich Jew.— 
Rebellion of the Barons. — Magna Charta. — Often Renewed. — 
Its Imperfections 13 

CHAPTER II. 
Illegal Acts of the King. 

The Stuart Dynasty. — James I. — His Notions of Royalty . — His Com- 
mands to Parliament. — Illegal Taxes.— Protest of Parliament.— 
Laws respecting Religion. — The King's Intolerance. — Conference 
with the Puritan Divines. — Establishes Episcopacy in Scotland. — 
The Book of Sports. — Intemperance of James. — His Favorites.— 
Somerset. — Buckingham. — His Death. — Accession of Charles L — 
His Character. — Asks for Money. — Twice dissolves Parliament. — 
Illegal Methods of raising Money. — Tunnage and Poundage.— 
Fines. — Forced Loans. — Sale of Offices. — Monopolies. — Ship 
Money. — Star Chamber Court. — High Commission. — Council at 
York.— "Thorough." — The Petition of Right. — New Abuses.— 
Parliament dispensed with. — Cruelties of the Courts. — John 
Hampden. — Flight of Puritans to New England. — Episcopacy in 
Scotland. — Jenny Gcddes'w Stool. —The Scots take up Arms.— 
New Parliament called and dismissed. — The Long Parliament. . . 24 



O CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER III. 
Resistance of the Parliament. 

The Long Parliament. — Who composed it. — Begin to discuss Griev- 
ances. — Release of Victims of the Star Chamber. — Impeachment 
of Laud. — And of Strafford. — Triennial Parliaments. — Ship-money 
Judges fined. — The King's Power of dissolving Parliament Sur- 
rendered. — The Irish Massacre. — "Grand Petition and Remon- 
strance."— Attempt to seize the Tower. — Insult to Parliament.— 
Charles retires to York. — Raises his Standard for War. — Battle of 
Edgehill. — The Oxford Parliament. — Treaty with the Scots.— 
Marston Moor. — Cromwell's Ironsides. — Remodeling of the Army. 

— Execution of Laud. — Battle of Naseby. — Charles surrenders to 
the Scots. — Is delivered to Parliament. — Expenses at Holmby 
House. — Intrigues. — Escape of Charles. — Battle of Preston. — 
Pride's Purge. — Ordinance for trying the King 66 

CHAPTER IV. 
The King's Trial and Execution. 

The High Court o f Justice. — Who composed it. — Sketch of Whalley. 

— of Goffe — of Dixwell. —Westminster Hall. — Meeting of the 

Commissioners. — Preliminaries. — Opening of the Court The 

King brought in. — His Arraignment. — And Answer. — A bad 
Omen. — Witnesses examined. — Declared guilty. — Sentence pro- 
nounced. — Alleged Insults.— The Warrant for his Execution.— 
Interview with his Children. — The Scaffold. — The King's Speech. 

— Cautions to the Executioner. — The Beheading. — Estimate of the 
Transaction. — Guilt of the King. — His Perfidy. — Pleas in his 
Favor. — The Trial and Execution illegal. — Justified by the Right 

of Revolution. — Motives and Character of the Judges 93 

CHAPTER V. 
England without a King. 

Who shall be Head of the State? — Not the Prince of Wales.— 
The Great Council. — Liberal Sentiments of the Puritans. — Con- 
spiracies. — In the Army. — Among the Royalists in Ireland. — 



CONTENTS. 7 

Among the Scots. — Battle of Dunbar. — Flight of Charles II.— 
Expulsion of the Ramp. — Barebone's Parliament. — Cromwell 
made Protector. — His first Parliament. — Major Generals ap- 
pointed. — The second Parliament. — Cromwell's Sickness and 
Death. — Richard Cromwell becomes Protector. — The Rump re- 
called. — Quarrels with the Army. — Appeals to General Monk. — 
' He decides for a Monarchy. — Restoration of Charles II. — Results 
of the great Struggle 122 

CHAPTER VI. 
Fate of the Regicides. 

England's Humiliation. — Character of Charles II. — His Promise of 
Indemnity for the Past. — Overruled by Parliament. — Flight of a 
Portion of the Judges. — Arrest of the Remainder. — Their Trial 
and Execution. — Heroism. — Harrison. — Scrope and Carew. — 
Hugh Peters, Jones, and others. — Barbarities of the Execution. — 
The Bodies of the Dead exhumed. — And disgraced 140 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Judges in Massachusetts. 

Whallcy and GofTe escape to New England. — Reasons for their com- 
ing here. — Their Arrival at Boston. — Reception by Governor Endi- 
cott. — Retire to Cambridge. — Respect shown to them. — Visit 
Boston and other Towns. — Primitive New England Society.— 
Story of the Fencing-master. — Arrival of the Act of Indemnity. — 
Alarm of the Authorities. — Meeting of the Council. — The Judges 
resolve to depart. — Affidavits of Breedon and Crowne. — The 
King's Proclamation. — Sentiments of the Massachusetts People. — 
Search in that Colony 153 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Flight to New Haven. 

Journey to New Haven. — Interview with Governor Winthrop. — Mr. 
Davenport's Sermon. — Arrival at New Haven. — Cordial Reception 
by the People. — The King's Proclamation comes to Boston. — Its 



8 CONTENTS. 

equivocal Language. — Commission of Kellond and Kirk. — They 
visit Hartford. — Arrive at Guilford. — Interview with Deputy Gov- 
ernor Leete. — The Sabbath at Guilford.— Rev. Mr. Whitfield's 
House. — Warning- sent to New Haven. — Mr. William Jones. — The 
Judges retire to his Mill. — Pretended Search for them. — Attempted 
Arrest by the Marshal. — They hide under Neck Bridge. — The 
King's Officers arrive at New Haven. — Meeting of the Governor 
and Magistrates. — Danger of the Authorities. — Penalty for harbor- 
ing Traitors. — Interview with the King's Officers. — Refusal to sur- 
render the Judges. — Anger of the Officers. — They search Mr. 
Davenport's House. — Mr. Jones's. — And Mrs. Alierton's. — Depart 
to Menhadoes 107 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Judges' Cave. 

The West Rock. — The Cave. — Sperry's Farm-house. — Providence 
Hill. — Feelings of the Judges. — Meeting of the General Court. — 
Their Declaration. — Its Statements defended. — Search through 
the Colony ordered.— General Election. — The Judges resolve to 
surrender. — They repair to Guilford. — Secreted in Governor 
Leete's Cellar. — Their Decision overruled. — Return to New Haven. 

— Publicly show themselves. — Ancient Church in New Haven. — 
The Congregation.— Personal Appearance of Mr. Davenport. — His 
Firmness and Courage 192 

CHAPTER X. 
The Lodge and the Stone Store. 

The Judges leave the Cave. — Wild Beasts. — Their second Hiding- 
place. — The Indians of New Haven Colony. — Hatchet Harbor.— 
The Bodge. — Loneliness of the Forest. — Bocalities in the Vicinity. 

— They retire to Milford. — Early Settlers of Milford. — Anecdote 
of Governor Treat. — Tomkins's Store. — The satirical Ballad.— 
Comparative Safety.— Intercourse with Friends. — Want of Means 
of Travel. — Large Attendance on Public Worship. — News-letters. 

— Letter from Rev. Mr. Ilooke. — Letter to Governor Gilbert.— 
Meetings in 1 he Store, — Goffe's Expositions of Prophecy 209 



CONTENTS. 9 

CHAPTER XI. 
Proceedings of the New Haven Magistrates. 

Alarm and Danger. — Letter from the Secretary of Massachusetts. — 

The General Court convened. — Their Reply to the Secretary. — 
Mr. Davenport's Apology. — Proclamation of the United Colonies. 

— Proposed Union of the Colonies of Connecticut and New Haven. 

— Governor Winthrop appointed Agent. — His Character. — And 
Services. — Friends of the Colonies at Court. — The Charter granted. 

— The Search for the Judges discontinued 230 

CHAPTER XII. 
The Judges at Hadley. 

Fresh Alarrri\ — Appointment of the King's Commissioners..— Hadley. 

— Its Settlement and its People. — Rev. Mr. Russell. — The Judges 
remove thither. — Mr. Russell's House. — The Judges' Apartments. 

— Twelve Years' Residence there. — The Mather Papers. — Visit of 
Colonel Dixwell. — Goffe's Letters. — Letter from his Wife. — 
Judges supplied with Money. — Goffc's Reply. — His Daughter's 
Conversion. — And Marriage. — Advice to the young Couple. — 
Death of his second Daughter. — Birth and Death of a Grandson. — 
Message to his Daughter Judith. — Caution against excessive Sor- 
row. — A Bit of Pleasantry. — Mrs. Goffc's Assurances of Affection. 

— Goffe's Letter on Christian Charity and Toleration. — Exposition 

of the Apocalypse 242 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Death of Whalley and Goffe. 

Time of Whalley's Death. — Goffe's Letter respecting him. —Burial in 
Mr. Russell's Cellar. — The New Haven Tradition. — Inscription on 
the Gravestones. — Discovery of his Remains in 1705. — King Philip's 
War. — Attack of the Indians upon Hadley. — Goffe's Command of 
the Defenders.— Battle of Bloody Brook. — Supposed Visit of Major 
Treat. — Traditions respecting Goll'e. — Probability of his Removal 



10 CONTENTS. 

to Hartford. — Randolph's Suspicions. — Extracts from Letter's. — 
Affidavit of John London. — Search for Goffe at Hartford. — Sup- 
posed Date of his Death . 269 

CHAPTER XIV. 

DlXWELL. 

First Appearance at New Haven. — Resides at Mr. Ling's. — His per- 
sonal Habits. — His Piety. — His Acquaintances in the Town. — 
Removal of Mr. Davenport to Boston. — His Death and Character. — 
Rev. Mr. Street. — Extracts from his Will. — Death of Mr. Ling.— 
Marriage with Mrs. Ling. — Her Death. — Marries a second Time. — 
His Children and Descendants. — Disposal of his Property in Eng- 
land. — Neglect on the Part of his English Relatives. — Attempts to 
recover his Property. — Rev. James Pierpont. — DixwelPs Intimacy 
with him. — Unites with the Church.— Raleigh's History.— Free- 
dom from Molestation. — Andross's Visit to New Haven. — Psalm- 
singing. — Last Sickness and Death. — Revolution in England. — 
Accession of William and Mary. — Changes in England and America 

. in two hundred Years. — Established Principles of Government. — 
Promise of the Future. — Erection of a Monument to Dixwell. ... 282 



THE THREE JUDGES. 




The engraving gives a view of what are popularly called 
"the Judges' gravestones," on the Public Square in New 
Haven. Their relative position is changed so as to allow them 
to be shown in one group. It will be seen that the 5 o" 
both the E. W. stones has a peculiar appearance, as if sub- 
stituted for or blended with a 7, so as possibly to suggest 
1678. The I. D. stone, which undoubtedly belongs to the 
grave of Dixwell, has been placed in the monumental inclo- 
sure by the side of the marble obelisk recently erected. 
The M. G. stone is now nearly or quite covered by the 
earth, in the path near the northern angle of the inclosure. 
See page 272. 

12 



CHAPTER I, 



STORY OF THE GREAT CHARTER. 




N our youthful days the boys of New 
Haven used to look with wonder upon 
the four little brown stones which stood 
upon the public square of that city, just back of 
the Center Church. They were unhewn stones, 
weather-beaten and battered, bearing rudely-sculp- 
tured initials and dates. We knew that this 
portion of the square, or "Upper Green/' as it 
was generally called, had once been the burying- 
ground of. the town — a fact commemorated by a 
marble tablet inserted in the rear wall of the 
church. But the practice of burying here was now 
discontinued, and the numerous old sandstone slabs, 
with a few more imposing monuments of slate and 
marble, had been removed to the new grounds in 
the northern part of the town, which have since 

13 



14 THE THREE JUDGES. 

become the populous cemetery, where repose so 
many of the learned, the wise, and the good of that 
beautiful city. 

These four little rude stones, — whose were 
they ? and why had they not been removed with 
the others ? We were told that they marked the 
graves- of The Judges ; the brave men who, two 
hundred years ago, had tried and put to death King 
Charles of England ; and who, when his son came 
afterward to be king, fled to these little colonies, 
and were secreted here till they died. The story 
was one of mysterious interest. It carried us back 
to the days when New Haven, now a large and 
elegant city, was a little village in the wilderness ; 
when the Indians lived among the hills looking 
down from the north and west ; when this country 
belonged to England, the great, powerful, and grand 
nation across the sea, which had a king, and lords, 
and big armies of red-coated soldiers, and dreadful 
ships of war, and everything that was splendid and 
imposing. Many a time have we sat on one of 
these old stones and thought of the stout-hearted 
men who slept beneath them, the daring deeds they 
performed, their lonely wanderings in the woods 
and caves, and the faith that sustained them in the 



STORY OF THE GREAT' CHARTER. 1 5 

whole, and made them seem to us like the heroes 
and saints of the martyr times. 

We can not but think that the story of those 
men, and of the cause in which they acted, is 
worth telling anew for the benefit of the boys and 
girls of our own time. By the favor of God those 
little colonies have become a great nation. Large 
and populous cities have grown up where once 
were only woods and wild beasts, or the roving 
red men wilder than they. Churches, and school- 
houses, and great factories, and thousands upon 
thousands of beautiful and happy homes fill the 
land. Long trains of cars, laden with travelers 
and merchandise, speed over our iron roads, and 
telegraphs flash our messages from ocean to ocean 
in a moment of time. How the fathers who laid 
the foundations of our institutions would have 
wondered if they could have foreseen what two 
hundred years would bring to pass here ! Let us 
never forget that it is to them, under God, that 
in great measure we owe these things. We reap 
the harvest of the seed they sowed. They were 
men who feared God. They believed, and revered, 
and obeyed the Bible as his Word. They prayed 
to him, and were sure that he heard them. . They 



1 6 THE THREE JUDGES. 

loved the Sabbath, and kept it holy. They were 
grave, and temperate, and honest men. And He 
whom they loved and served watched over the seed 
they thus planted, and has given it at length such 
a wonderful harvest. 

It was a cold winter day in the year 1649, when 
the proud King Charges of England was led out 
from his palace in London upon a scaffold, in the 
sight of thousands of his people, and beheaded as 
a criminal. In those times this was an astonish- 
ing thing to do. Kings were thought to be 
something more than men. Their persons were 
deemed sacred, as the anointed representatives of 
God himself. We, in our day, and in this country 
where we have no king, can not imagine what a 
shock it gave to men's minds. Mr. Carlyle says, 
" No modern reader can conceive the then atro- 
city, ferocity, and unspeakability of this fact. To 
be equaled, nay, to be preferred, think some, in 
point of horror, to the crucifixion of Christ. Alas, 
in these irreverent times of ours, if all the kings in 
Europe were to be cut in pieces at one swoop, and 
flung in heaps into St. Martin's Churchyard on the 
same day, the emotion would, in strict arithmetical 



STORY OF THE GREAT CHARTER. I J 

truth, be small in comparison. I reckon it perhaps 
the most daring action any body of men to be met 
in history ever with clear consciousness deliberate- 
ly set themselves to do." 

What had the king done, and why did they put 
him to death ? The story is a long one, and to 
be fully understood we must go back a thousand 
years in English history. 

From the times of the Anglo-Saxons, the oldest 
ancestors of the English nation, there has come 
down to us a body of laws and customs which have 
ever been regarded as lying at the foundation of 
government in our mother land, and which, for that 
reason, have been most carefully cherished by the 
people. Their design has been to make the gov- 
ernment one of law, and not of the arbitrary will 
of king or noble. The Shah of Persia, who has just 
been making a visit to Queen Victoria, can at any 
moment seize upon the property of one of his sub- 
jects, or cut off his head, if he chooses ; but the 
Queen of England — though a country vastly more 
powerful than Persia — can not do either. In the 
one case, that has to be done which the king says ; 
in the other, that which the law says. The gov- 
ernment of both is a monarchy, but in England 
2 



IS THE THREE JUDGES. 

this is restrained and limited, so that every man's 
life, liberty, and property, unless he commits some 
crime, are safe. 

It took a long time, however, and an immense 
amount of blood and treasure to establish these 
principles, and make them the unquestioned right 
of every Englishman. When the Norman Duke 
William conquered England, in A. D. 1066, he 
reduced the people to a state of slavery. He 
seized their lands and other property, and divided 
them among his followers, murdered their nobles, 
and ravaged whole districts with fire and sword. 
For a time the strength and spirit of the nation 
were so broken that they could make no effective 
resistance. But his sons and successors, William 
II. and Henry I., found that they could not do 
just as he had done, and in order to establish 
themselves on the throne they were obliged to 
make concessions to the people, and promise to 
observe the ancient laws ; promises, however, 
which were very poorly kept. Again, in A. D. 
12 15, there was wrung from the king the most 
celebrated of all such concessions, ever since 
known as Magna Charta. 

The sovereign at that time was John, the fifth 



STORY OF THE GREAT CHARTER. 1 9 

in descent from the Conqueror ; — a weak and 
wicked man, having all the vices and but few of 
the virtues of the Norman line of kings. John 
was engaged in a war with France, and wanted 
money to pay his soldiers. He did not ask the 
parliament to give it to him, but seized it wherever 
he could. He arrested the nobles and rich men, 
and made them pay great sums to be released, and 
if they refused, shut them up in prison and confis- 
cated their estates. At that time the Jews were 
very numerous in England, and many of them 
wealthy. These he thought a fair prey, for every- 
body hated the Jews, and would care very little if 
they were plundered. A story is told of a rich 
Jew in Bristol who was ordered to pay ten thou- 
sand marks, — about thirty-three thousand dollars, 
— equivalent, at least, to three times as much at 
the present day. This he refused to do, and was 
sentenced to have one of his teeth knocked out 
each day till he complied. The executioner began 
with the double teeth, and took seven in as many 
days, when the victim could hold out no longer, 
and agreed to pay his money to save his teeth. 

The tyrant summoned the heads of the abbeys, 
monasteries, and other religious houses to meet 



20 THE THREE JUDGES. 

him in London, and compelled them to give him 
large sums. He imposed a multitude of new taxes, 
and collected the old ones with extortionate sever- 
ity. These oppressions rested on prince and peas- 
ant alike, and stirred up all classes to resistance. 
The great lords collected their vassals and marched 
up to London. At last the king was alarmed. He 
tried both bullying and coaxing, but in vain. The 
nobles were determined to get from him a solemn 
promise, in writing, that he would discontinue 
these outrages, and rule according to the laws of 
the land. 

When the parchment containing this pledge was 
handed to him, he cried out profanely, "Why do 
they not demand my crown also ? By God's teeth, 
I will not grant these liberties, which will make me 
a slave ! " But he thought better of it when he 
saw the resolute spirit of those mailed warriors, and 
found himself almost deserted by his friends ; only 
seven knights of all his court remaining near his 
person. He finally agreed to meet the barons, and 
grant their request. The place of meeting was a 
beautiful meadow, called Runnymede, on the banks 
of the Thames, not far from the royal palace of 
Windsor. The parchment scroll was presented to 



STORY OF THE GREAT CHARTER. 21 

the king in the presence of the assembled nobility, 
and received the royal signature and seal. 

This Great Charter formally defined the 
fundamental principles of justice, and solemnly 
guaranteed their observance. Two articles were 
specially important. One of them declared that 
" no free man should be arrested, or imprisoned, or 
dispossessed of Ids tenement, or ontlazvcd, or exiled, 
or in any way proceeded against, unless by the 
legal judgment of Ids peers, or by the law of the 
land; 11 the other, that " the right of imposing 
taxes upon the people or their property, should be 
possessed by parliament alone 11 Other articles 
pledged the king to appoint upright judges, to 
restore to their owners all estates unlawfully seized, 
and to permit every free man to dispose of his 
property by will, and not have it taken by the 
crown, and that no officer should seize any horses, 
carts, or wood, without consent of the owner, &c. 

Four hundred years passed away, during which 
these laws were for the most part observed. Many 
stirring events and many great changes took place. 
Dreadful wars, called the "Wars of the Roses," 
broke out among the nobles, who were rival 
claimants to the throne, and were continued for 



22 THE THREE JUDGES. 

many years, until both parties were exhausted, and 
the entire noble order was almost destroyed, pre- 
paring the way for the elevation of the common 
people to a higher degree of freedom and influence 
than they had before known. Henry VI I L, called 
" Bluff King Hal," quarreled with the Pope, and 
abolished the Roman Catholic church and its 
institutions out of the land. " Bloody Queen 
Mary," his daughter, restored them, and perse- 
cuted and burned the Protestants in turn. 
" Queen Bess," as the people styled her, by her 
wise reign made the kingdom rich and prosperous 
at home and powerful abroad. 

During this long succession of sovereigns, and 
amid these great changes, the English people con- 
tinued to look carefully after their Great Charter. 
True, it was often broken. The kings were apt to 
be restive under its restraints, and not unfrequent- 
ly dared to disregard or even defy it ; but there 
always came times of difficulty and straitness, when 
they were compelled to recognize and reaffirm it. 
No fewer than thirty -two times, in these four 
hundred years, was it solemnly renewed as the 
fundamental law of the realm. 

It must not be understood, of course, that this 



STORY OF THE GREAT CHARTER. 23 

famous document was a perfect guarantee of liberty 
in the modern sense of the term. It did not eman- 
cipate any slaves, of whom there were a great 
many at that time, nor did it undertake to pro- 
tect them in any degree whatever. It estab- 
lished no theoretical equality of all men, nor any 
safeguard against injustice of other kinds than 
those mentioned. Freedom's day, as we understand 
it, had not yet risen upon mankind ; the transac- 
tions at Runnymede were only the first rays of its 
dawn. They were, nevertheless, of very great im- 
portance as recognizing the principle of restricting 
the sovereign's power, and they were harbingers 
of a still more glorious future, which, by God's 
favor, should ultimately bless the nation and the 
world. 





CHAPTER II. 

ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 

HEN Queen Elizabeth, who was never 
married, died, she had no son to suc- 
ceed her ; so the English went to Scot- 
land for a king. James, the son of the beautiful 
and unfortunate Mary Stuart, was then — 1603 
— already on the Scottish throne, and was chosen 
to be the sovereign of England. He, his son, and 
his two grandsons, who reigned in succession, 
constituted the Stuart dynasty. For more than 
fourscore years they tyrannized over the country 
that adopted them, till their oppressions and vices 
made them no longer endurable, and the family 
was at last expelled, to return no more. 1 

James was a very vain man, very learned in his 



1 Queen Mary II., Princess of Orange, and Queen Anne, 
Princess of Denmark, were daughters of James II., but are 
not commonly included in this dynasty. 

24 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 25 

own fashion, but very weak. He thought himself, 
however, another Solomon, and often likened him- 
self to that wisest of men ; but many of his people, 
nevertheless, thought him very near a fool. He 
came into England with the most extravagant ideas 
of the exalted sanctity and dignity of a king. His 
courtiers and flatterers, of whom he had a great 
many, constantly supported these pretensions, and 
declared that they were true. They said he was 
king by the grace of God ; as such, that he could 
do no wrong ; that he was the Lord's anointed, his 
person was sacred, and his royal majesty divine. 
In a stupid book which he wrote and published, he 
declared that " the duty of a king was to command, 
that of a subject to obey, in all things ; that kings 
reigned by divine right, and were raised by the 
Almighty above all law ; that a sovereign might 
daily make statutes and ordinances, and inflict 
such punishments as he thought meet, without any 
advice of parliament or estates ; that general laws 
made publicly in parliament might by the king's 
authority be privately mitigated or suspended upon 
causes known only to himself; and that, although a 
good king will frame all his actions to be according 
to the law, yet he is not bound thereto but of his 

) 



26 THE THREE JUDGES. 

own free will and for example-giving to his sub- 
jects." 

Nor was this mere idle talk ; it was put into 
practice whenever his pleasure required it. On 
his way from Scotland to assume his crown, he 
ordered a person suspected of theft to be hung 
without judge or jury. "Do I make the judges ?" 
he exclaimed. " Do I make the bishops ? Then, 
God's wounds ! I make what likes me, law and 
gospel ! " 

In accordance with these notions, when issuing 
the summons for his first parliament he undertook 
to tell his people whom they should and should 
not choose to be members of it. He commanded 
them "to avoid all persons noted in religion for 
their superstitious blindness one way, or their tur- 
bulent humor other ways ; " that is, they should 
not elect either Catholics or Puritans. He ordered 
that if any returns were made of members contrary 
to these instructions, they should be set aside as 
null and void, and the cities and boroughs which 
had elected them should be fined, and the persons 
themselves fined and imprisoned. 

The House of Lords swallowed these extravagant 
claims, but the Commons rejected them. Not- 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 2J 

withstanding the kind's order, not a few of the 
Puritans had obtained seats in that body, and they 
did not scruple to dispute his right to judge of 
their qualifications or dictate their proceedings. 
But the time had not come for an open quarrel 
between them ; so, with some mutual concessions, 
the matter for the time was dropped. 

A few years later the same pretensions were 
put forth again. James imposed taxes of various 
sorts upon the people, which many of the members 
declared were illegal. When the parliament ven- 
tured to discuss the matter, he sent them an angry 
message, commanding them " not to meddle with 
anything concerning our government and deep 
matters of state," and declaring that "we think 
ourself very free and able to punish any man's 
misdemeanors in parliament as well during their 
sitting as after ; which we mean not to spare here- 
after upon any occasion of any man's insolent be- 
havior there." Finally, he summoned both houses 
to his palace at Whitehall, and read them a long 
lecture. " Kings," said he, " are justly called gods " 
(referring to Psalm lxxxii. 6), " for that they exer- 
cise a manner or resemblance of divine power on 
earth ; for if you will consider the attributes of 



28 THE THREE JUDGES. 

God, you shall see how they agree in the person 
of a king. God hath power to create or destroy, 
to make or unmake, at his pleasure ; to give life, 
or send death ; to judge all, and to be judged nor 
accountable to none ; to raise low things, and to 
make high things low, at his pleasure ; and to God 
both soul and body are due. And the like power 
have kings : they make and unmake their subjects ; 
they have power of raising and casting down, of 
life and of death ; — judges over all their subjects 
and in all causes, and yet accountable to none but 
God only. They have power to exalt low things 
and abase high things, and make of their subjects 
like men of chess, — a pawn to take a bishop or 
knight, and to cry up or down any of their subjects 
as they do their money. And to the king is due 
both the affection of the soul and the service of the 
body of his subjects." He told them further that 
it was " sedition in his subjects to dispute what a 
king might do in the plenitude of his power ; — 
that kings were before laws, and that all laws were 
granted by them as matter of favor to the people." 
These preposterous assertions called forth anew 
a strong protest from the parliament. First, they 
said it was their privilege to talk of what they 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 29 

pleased ; — "it was an ancient, general, and un- 
doubted right of parliament freely to debate all 
matters which do properly concern the subject." 
Then, as to making laws, — it was to be done 
" with the assent of parliament ; and not otherwise." 
They told the king further, " that the people of 
this kingdom had been ever careful to preserve 
these liberties and rights when anything had been 
done to prejudice them ; that his Majesty's most 
humble Commons, following the example of their 
ancestors " (a very significant allusion to Runny- 
mede and Magna Charta), "and finding that his 
Majesty, without advice or consent of parliament, 
had lately, in time of peace, set both greater im- 
positions and far more in number than any of his 
ancestors had ever done in times of war, with all 
humility presume to petition that all impositions 
set without assent of parliament should be quite 
abolished and taken away, and that his Majesty, in 
imitation of his noble progenitors, would be pleased 
that a law be made during this session of parlia- 
ment declaring that all impositions or duties set, 
or to be set, upon his people, their goods or mer- 
chandise, save only by common consent of parlia- 
ment, are and ever shall be void." 



30 THE THREE JUDGES. 

Such was the nature of the dispute between this 
arbitrary house of Stuart and the English people. 
The king meant to do as he pleased, without let or 
hinderance of anybody, as did the absolute mon- 
archs of France and Spain ; the parliament meant 
he should reign according to law, and especially that 
he should respect and observe the requirements 
of the Great Charter. We shall see, by and by, 
how the dispute ended. 

But there were other causes of trouble beside 
this. In those days, one of the matters which 
governments had most to do with was religion. 
Now, everybody professes what religion he chooses, 
or none at all, and the government does not, in 
most countries, concern itself about it. But then, 
inasmuch as a man's belief most influences his 
conduct, it was thought to be of the very first 
importance that his opinions should be regulated 
by law. The law prescribed what every man 
should believe, where he should go to church, and 
how he should worship, even the very words of 
his prayers and his praises, when he should stand, 
when he should kneel, and when he should sit. 
The king appointed the bishops, and through them 
all the ministers in the land. To preach, or to 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 3 1 

hear anybody preach without authority ; to attend 
any but the established meeting, or to neglect at- 
tending that ; to say any words in worship, to 
practice any ceremony, or to hold any opinion 
whatever, except what the law permitted, was a 
crime to be punished by fine, by imprisonment, 
and even by death. And the king himself claimed 
the right to order all these things by his own au- 
thority, and to inflict such penalties for disobedi- 
ence as he pleased ! Most monstrous claim for 
any man to make, be he king, prelate, or pope. 

James had been brought up among the Presby- 
terians of Scotland, and while he remained there 
had been obliged to conform to their church. 
Once, in 1590, he had stood up in their General 
Assembly in Edinburgh, with his hat off, and his 
hands lifted up to heaven, and said he " praised 
God that he was born in the time of the light of 
the gospel, and in such a place as to be king of 
such a church, the purest kirk in the world." But 
in his heart he hated it, — its austere creed its 
long sermons and prayers, and, most of all, its rigid 
morality, its opposition to swearing, drinking, and 
lewdness. "I protest before the great God," he 
wrote to his son Henry, "that ye shall never find 



32 THE THREE JUDGES. 

with any highland or border thieves greater in- 
gratitude, and more lies and vile perjuries, than 
with these fanatic spirits. Suffer not the principal 
of them to brook your land if ye list to sit at rest ; 
except ye would keep them for trying your pa- 
tience, as Socrates did an evil wife." His mother 
had been a Catholic, and the Stuart family were 
always inclined to that faith ; but James knew that 
after the reign of " Bloody Mary," neither Scotland 
nor England would tolerate a Catholic king again. 
While, therefore, he adhered to the church as estab- 
lished by Elizabeth and her father, Henry VIII., 
he resolved to render it as much like the Catholic 
church as possible. He was the head of it, and 
he would make all his subjects conform to it. 

When the leading Puritan divines came to peti- 
tion him for some liberty as to the modes and forms 
of public worship, he cried out, " I will none of 
that ! I will have one doctrine and discipline, — 
one religion in substance and ceremony." He 
treated them at the same time with shameful inso- 
lence. He argued, he ridiculed, and he scolded. 
" If you aim at a presbytery," he said, " it agreeth 
with monarchy as God with the devil." When the 
venerable minister who had spoken for the rest 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 33 

was silent under his violence, James cried out, 
" Well, doctor, have you anything more to say ? n 
The doctor replied, " No, your Majesty." Then the 
king told him that if he and his fellows had rea- 
soned thus lamely in a college, and he, the king, 
had been moderator, he would have had them 
fetched up and flogged for dunces ; that if this 
was all they could say for themselves, he would 
have them conform, or hurry them out of the land, 
or else do worse. He made his boast of his treat- 
ment of them afterward. " I peppered them 
soundly," he said ; " they fled me from argument 
to argument like school-boys." 

These threats of enforced conformity were car- 
ried out against dissenters of every class. Puritans 
on the one side, and Catholics on the other, were 
made to. feel the strong hand of power. Three 
hundred clergymen were turned out of their liv- 
ings ; ten, who had merely signed a petition to the 
king, were put into prison ; spies were sent to ferret 
out prayer-meetings and conventicles, and soon the 
jails were full of prisoners. Fines, confiscations, 
and torture by the rack were very common. Two 
persons were burned alive for heresy, and a third 
was condemned, when such an outcry was made 

3 



34 THE THREE JUDGES. 

by the nation that the sentence was not executed. 
" The king," says Fuller, " preferred the heretics 
should silently and privately waste themselves 
away in prison." In Scotland James's conduct 
was still more arbitrary. He went up to Edin- 
burgh ; dismissed the General Assembly of the 
kirk ; forbade the ministers from meeting, and when 
they disobeyed him, had them arrested and pun- 
ished for high treason ; appointed bishops and 
archbishops, and so far as was possible, set up the 
English church system throughout that kingdom, 
all by virtue of his own prerogative alone, without 
the shadow of authority by law. To crown the 
whole, he instituted High Commission Courts, after 
the pattern of that most oppressive and infamous 
tribunal in England, and gave them power, at dis- 
cretion, to fine, imprison, banish, or otherwise 
punish anybody that should refuse to submit to his 
proceedings. 

In addition to this stretch of royal power in both 
civil and spiritual matters, James disgusted all 
the better classes of his people by the scandalous 
immorality which he either practiced or connived < 
at. During this visit to Scotland he had been 
greatly annoyed with the strict way in which they 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 35 

kept the Sabbath in that country ; so, on his re- 
turn, he issued his famous " Book of Sports," au- 
thorizing and commanding the practice of a great 
variety of plays, games, &c, on Sundays, after 
divine service. The reasons assigned for it were 
twofold : first, to promote the conversion of the 
Catholics, by alluring them to so cheerful a reli- 
gion ; and secondly, to accustom his people to 
* such exercises as may make their bodies more 
able for war, when his Majesty or his successors 
shall have occasion to use them." He ordered, 
therefore, that "after the end of divine service his 
good people be not disturbed, letted, or discour- 
aged from any lawful recreation, such as dancing, 
either men or women, archery for men, leaping, 
vaulting, or any other such harmless recreation ; 
nor from having of May-games, Whitsun-ales, and 
Morrice-dances, and the setting up of May-poles 
and other sports therewith used, so as the same 
be had in due and convenient time, without neglect 
or impediment of divine service ; and that women 
shall have leave to carry rushes to the church for 
the decorating of it, according to their old custom." 
These privileges, however, he strictly limited to 
those who had been to church, " recusants, either 



2,6 THE THREE JUDGES. 

men or women, being unworthy of any lawful rec- 
reation after the said service." A pretty sure way 
this to make people attend divine worship, by 
promising them merry times on the church-green 
after it! He added, that "his Majesty's pleasure 
likewise is, that the bishop of the diocese take 
strict order with all the Puritans and Precisians 
within the same, and either constrain them to con- 
form themselves, or to leave the country, accord- 
ing to the laws of this kingdom and canons of this 
church." 

Of course, the king practiced what he preached. 
On one occasion, when he had a visit from his 
brother-in-law, the King of Denmark, both those 
" mighty princes " got so drunk, that his English 
Majesty had to be carried to bed in the arms of 
his courtiers, and his Danish majesty lost his way 
to his chamber, and committed great indecencies. 
The guests would naturally follow so high an 
example. " Men," says an eye-witness, " who had 
been shy of good liquor before, now wallowed in 
beastly delights ; the ladies abandoned their sobri- 
ety, and were seen to roll about in intoxication." 
James divided his time, for the most part, be- 
tween hunting, of which he was excessively fond, 




James I. in Hunting Costume. Page 37. 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. ^7 

and drinking ; indeed, he contrived to combine 
the two, for when he was hunting he kept an officer 
as near him as possible with a bottle of win£, ready- 
to fill the king's cup whenever he called for it. 
No matter how pressing the public business, it 
had to wait for his sport. One day some persons 
caught one of his hounds, a*nd tied a paper about 
his neck, on which was written, " Good Mr. Jowler, 
we pray you, speak to the king, for he hears you 
every day, and so doth he not us, that it will please 
his Majesty to go back to London, for else the 
country will be undone." Mr. Jowler carried the 
petition, but it did no good ; a whole fortnight 
passed before he would go. The king grew so 
fat and stupid with drinking that he had to be 
" trussed," or tied on to his horse, when he went 
out, and " as he was set, so would he ride, without 
otherwise poising himself on his saddle ; nay, when 
his hat was set on his head, he would not take 
the pains to alter it, but it sat as it was put on." 
All this time he was never addressed in any other 
terms than " his most sacred Majesty," " most 
wise," "most learned," etc. 

When not hunting, James generally lay in bed, 
too indolent to attend to any matters of state which 



38 THE THREE JUDGES. 

he could avoid. He wrote to his council that he 
" desired them to take the charge and burden of 
affairs, and foresee that he be not interrupted nor 
troubled with too much business." He even de- 
clared that he would rather go back to Scotland 
again, than be chained forever to the council table. 

His costume was in keeping with his character. 
A book on hunting, published in his reign, shows 
him as he appeared in his favorite amusement. 
" He was dressed all over in colors green as the 
grass, with a little feather in his cap, and a horn 
instead of a sword by his side/' His breeches were 
of enormous size, laid in great plaits and stuffed ; 
and his doublets or jackets quilted to protect him 
from assassination. 

You may well imagine how much the religious 
people of the kingdom were scandalized by such a 
specimen of " Majesty " as this. Even the French 
embassador wrote home to his master, " Consider, 
for pity's sake, what must be the state and condi- 
tion of a prince whom the preachers publicly from 
the pulpit assail; whom the comedians of the 
metropolis bring upon the stage ; whose wife at- 
tends these representations in order to enjoy the 
laugh against her husband ; whom the parliament 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 39 

braves and despises ; and who is universally hated 
by the whole people. My lot is fallen on a king- 
dom without order, sunken from its glory and age, 
smitten from repose ; on a king devoted to his own 
nothingness, and whose principle it is only so far 
to strive for the good of his subjects as may give 
him facilities for plunging himself deeper into vice 
of every kind." 

During nearly all his reign he was under the 
influence of his favorites, who, having the skill to 
steal his affections, used their power over him to 
make him do whatever they pleased. First, he 
took a fancy to a bright-eyed Scotch boy by the 
name of Carr. He appointed him his page, gave 
v him rich clothes and jewelry, made him a knight 
and gentleman of his bed-chamber, and bestowed 
upon him all sorts of foolish caresses. Of course, 
the young man flattered his vanity, and did every- 
thing he could to please him. The courtiers began 
to see that if they wanted anything of the king, 
they must ask Carr for it. So they gave him pres- 
ents, and bought his influence with money. James 
made him a viscount, and a member of the Order 
of the Garter ; then lord chamberlain of England, 
and virtually his prime minister ; and lastly, Earl 



40 THE THREE JUDGES. 

of Somerset. Then, when the young man, having 
committed so many crimes that he grew melan- 
choly under the lashings of conscience, lost his 
power of amusing the king, the latter took up a 
new favorite. He was tall and graceful, and with 
so handsome a face, that James said he must look 
as the martyr Stephen did when the Jews were 
about to stone him (Acts vi. 1 5), and led by this 
strange - whim, he called him "Stephen," or, more 
frequently, " Steenie." The king took him into his' 
service, heaped upon him riches and honors, made 
him a viscount, and master of the horse, and 
finally Duke of Buckingham. He acquired such a 
control over his royal master, that he became in 
truth the real ruler of the kingdom. His charac- 
ter and life were as bad as they well could be. 
He sold offices and pensions ; he made the judges 
and courts, and, to a large extent, parliament itself, 
do as he said. He despised religion and its faithful 
ministers, and insulted, disgraced, and punished 
them at his pleasure. He was so proud and 
haughty that everybody hated him ; he even car- 
ried his insolence so far as to make fun of the 
king himself, calling him " Dear Dad and Gossip," 
and " Your royal Sow-ship." He was now the 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 41 

chosen and boon companion of Prince Charles, the 
heir apparent, and the king used to treat them as 
if they were both his sons, lavishing upon them all 
manner of coarse and silly fondness, and calling 
them his " Baby Charlie," and " Baby Steenie." 

For twenty-two long years the English nation 
had to endure such a reign as this, and then the 
weak, vain, and heartless king died. We should not 
have dwelt so long upon it, if it were not necessary 
to show in what a school Charles, his successor, 
had been brought up, and what sort of example 
had been left him by one to whom he might natu- 
rally look up as to a father. Before we leave him, 
however, it is no more than just to mention one 
thing which stands out in bright relief from the 
dark background of folly and cruelty which this 
reign exhibits ; and that is, our English translation 
of the Bible. One of the things which the Puritan 
ministers asked of James in the famous conference 
near the beginning of his reign, was that he would 
take measures to secure a revision of the existing 
version. Fortunately, this suggestion happened 
to please him, and he appointed a commission of 
fifty-four of the most learned men in the kingdom 
to undertake the work. It was begun in 1604, and 



42 THE THREE JUDGES. 

finished in 1611, and although not at all a new 
translation, but only a revised and corrected edition 
of a version already in use, was one of the noblest 
and most beneficent works of that century. We 
can almost forgive him the wickedness and dis- 
grace of the rest of his administration for the good 
that has resulted, and is still to result, from this. 

Charles, the second, son of James (Prince Henry, 
the elder, having died), became king on the death 
of his father, in 1625. He was then in the twenty- 
fifth year of his age, handsome in his person, gen- 
tlemanly in his manners, and with many princely 
accomplishments. But he had been trained in the 
school of tyranny, and was not a whit behind his 
father in the practice of it. He had far more in- 
tellectual ability, and more common sense, but he 
cherished the same extravagant opinions about the 
divine rights and powers of a king. He was sur- 
rounded, too, by the same vile crowd of flatterers, 
who fostered his vanity, and incessantly spurred 
him forward in the dangerous course his father 
had been pursuing of plundering and abusing his 
people. He was more decent in his personal hab- 
its, yet none the less a dissembler and deceiver. 
Both of them seemed to think that lying was one 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 43 

of the first qualifications for reigning. James, in- 
deed, used to call it "kingcraft," and boast how 
cunningly he contrived, by means of it, to manage 
the nation. They gave the most solemn promises 
without a thought of performing them ; they swore 
" upon the word of a king," and broke their oath, 
without the least compunction, the moment it was 
convenient to do so. Indeed, it was this which, 
more than anything else, seems to have finally cost 
Charles his head. When he found himself in ex- 
tremities, and saw that the temper of the nation 
could no longer be trifled with, he promised very 
solemnly that he would reform his practices ; but 
it was too late. They had learned by long and 
bitter experience that he was not to be trusted, 
and all his professions went for nothing. They 
made up their minds that only one thing could 
cure his Majesty of lying, and they tried it ; and 
ever since, the English kings have remembered 
and profited by the lesson. 

Of course, the first thing that Charles must do, 
when he came to the throne, was to convene his 
parliament, and ask them to supply him with the 
proper revenues. He was in debt, and he want- 
ed to prosecute the war with Spain, which his 



44 THE THREE JUDGES. 

father had left him. The parliament were willing 
enough to do this, but first they wanted to have the 
grievances under which the nation had suffered so 
long redressed. So they made him a gift of money, 
and the usual taxes ; but instead of settling these 
upon him for life, they limited them to one year. 
Charles was very angry at this, and dissolved the 
parliament at once, before it had been in session 
three weeks. 

Next year he was obliged to convene them 
again, and, hoping to overawe them, sent one of 
his great lords to make them an opening speech 
in his name. He reminded them of the "incom- 
parable distance between the supreme hight and 
majesty of a mighty monarch and the submissive 
awe and lowliness of loyal subjects," and told them 
that " that high majesty did descend to admit, or 
rather to invite, his humble subjects to conference 
and counsel with him in parliament." But the House 
of Commons cared nothing for such talk ; they had 
heard it too often in the last thirty years. So they 
went to work, the first thing, at the public griev- 
ances, and drew up a complaint mentioning sixteen 
"capital abuses," all fatal to the liberties of the 
people. It would not do to charge these against 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 45 

the king himself; so they threw the blame of them 
upon the royal favorite, the profligate Duke of 
Buckingham. Charles hurried to the House of 
Lords to defend the duke ; but seeing that the 
Commons were as resolute as he, and that he could 
get no money from them, he broke up the session, 
and sent parliament home again. 

Then the king and his courtiers set themselves 
once more to devise ways and means to get money. 
Some of the most noted of these methods were the 
following : — 

First, he would still collect the tax called " tun- 
nage and poundage," which had long been accus- 
tomed to be granted to the kings for life, but which, 
as I have said, had been voted to Charles for but 
one year. This was a sort of tariff of duties upon 
goods bought and sold, being rated at so much 
a turty if liquid measure, and so much a pound, 
if by weight. Another method was by fines, which 
were imposed for all sorts of offenses, and instead 
of all other kinds of punishments. No matter what 
the crime was, if a man was only able to give a 
good round sum to the king, it was accepted in 
the place of everything else. Hundreds of persons 
were arrested for pretended offenses, on suspicion, 



46 THE THREE JUDGES. 

or the information of spies and professional ac- 
cusers, and cast into prison, from which money 
alone could release them. Very similar to these 
were forced loans, or, as they were styled, " benev- 
olences." Persons, corporations, and even towns 
and cities, were compelled to lend money to the 
king, which, of course, he never dreamed of re- 
paying. A very common and lucrative resource 
was to sell offices and commissions. Great num- 
bers of persons were forced to receive the order of 
knighthood, and then to pay monstrous fees to his 
Majesty for the honor. Monopolies yielded large 
revenues. Patents were granted to certain parties, 
giving them, the exclusive righfto make or to deal 
in particular kinds of goods, or to carry on some 
trade ; in return for which such or such a per cent, 
was paid to the king. For instance, he chartered 
a company of soap-makers, and gave them the sole 
right to manufacture soap, and to ask for it what 
they chose ; in return for which they paid him ten 
thousand pounds at once, and a duty of eight 
pounds on every tun of soap thus disposed of. 
Then the starch-makers bought a similar privilege, 
and so on, till there was scarcely any trade or 
manufacture carried on in the kingdom which was 
not made a monopoly. 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 47 

One of the most famous of these taxes, and one 
which had most immediate connection with the 
•downfall of the king, was what was called " ship 
money." He pretended that the country was lia- 
ble to be invaded by sea, its commerce interrupt- 
ed, and its merchandise plundered by pirates and 
Turks, and therefore called upon the sea-coast 
towns, and afterward upon all* in the kingdom, to 
contribute ships of war, manned and equipped, or, 
in place of them, sums of money which might pur- 
chase them, for the defense of the realm. The 
city of London was required to furnish seven ships, 
having an aggregate of four thousand tuns and 
seventeen hundred and sixty men, with full sup- 
plies, and to support them for six months. Assess- 
ments for this purpose were laid on all the citizens 
there and throughout the country. A similar tax 
was laid for the equipment and pay of a land force, 
which was called "'coat and conduct money." 

Nor was the king without the means of en- 
forcing these taxes. The judges of all the courts 
were appointed by him, and he took care that these 
should be persons who would decide all cases in his 
favor. If any were disobedient, and did not please 
him, they were turned out. of office, imprisoned, 



48 THE THREE JUDGES. 

fined, or otherwise punished as he saw fit. But 
beside the regular law courts, there were two ex- 
traordinary tribunals, which for their abuses and 
cruelties became specially infamous, and their very 
names will remain synonymous with injustice 
while the language endures. These were the 
Courts of the Star Chamber and the High 
Commission. 

The former was simply the king's Council of 
State, or, in modern phrase, his ministers, who sat 
for the purpose of judging criminal cases in "what 
was called the " Star Chamber." It held its 
sessions in secret, and had been empowered by 
law, or had usurped the power, to try all sorts of 
alleged offenses, and to punish them at discretion. 
The members of this court were appointed by the 
king, and held their office at his pleasure ; of course 
they w£re the ready tools for doing anything he 
wished to have done. The High Commission 
Court was in theory a spiritual one, having special 
jurisdiction of religious matters, and was designed 
to punish all those who refused to conform to 
the established religion and its rites and require- 
ments. It consisted of a body of commissioners 
appointed by the sovereign for the express purpose 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 49 

of searching out all offenses of this kind, and 
armed with the fullest powers, to try, and even 
to torture, all suspected persons, and, if found 
guilty, punish them as they saw , fit. Thus by 
its very constitution it was, like its sister court, 
a fitting instrument for executing every species 
of tyranny. They were two engines of arbitrary 
power, which, as an able historian remarks, " per- 
haps never were surpassed by any contrivance of 
government to keep the people in continual awe 
of the sovereign authority." 

There was also a tribunal in the north, called 
the Council of York, of which the Earl of Strafford 
was president, which was invested with almost 
unlimited power over that part of the kingdom. 
We are informed by Clarendon that there was 
hardly a man of note in the realm who had not 
personal experience of the harshness and greedi- 
ness of the Star Chamber, that the High Com- 
mission had so conducted itself that it had scarce 
a friend left in the kingdom, and that the tyranny 
of the Council of York had made the Great 
Charter a dead letter to the north of the Trent. 1 

It should be said here, in Charles's behalf, that 

1 Macaulay, Hist. vol. i. p. 69. 
4 



50 THE THREE JUDGES. 

neither these illegal taxes nor these infamous 
tribunals for enforcing them and punishing all who 
were disobedient were invented by him, or first put 
in operation in his reign. They had, as already 
intimated, been resorted to by his father and other 
predecessors for a great many years, and had often 
occasioned outbreaks of discontent and resistance. 
But the practice of them had not been so habitual 
as now, nor accompanied with so much to irritate 
the people. Besides, there had previously been 
something in the characters or circumstances of 
the sovereigns which made the nation more toler- 
ant of such wrongs. Henry VIII. was engaged 
in his desperate contest with the Pope, and if he was 
occasionally cruel, it was mostly toward those who 
opposed his great work of reformation. His young 
son, Edward VI., was a pious prince, greatly be- 
loved by all except the enemies of Protestantism. 
Elizabeth was able and wise, conducting the 
affairs of the nation so as to render it prosperous 
at home, and powerful and respected abroad. 
Besides, she knew how far she could go in her ex- 
actions, and had sense enough, when she saw the 
storm coming, gracefully to yield. But in the 
case of James and Charles there was nothing, 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 5 I 

either in their acts or their characters, to com- 
pensate for their tyranny. James was a coward 
and a miser, and the brave English despised as well 
as hated him. They painted a picture of him as 
wearing a scabbard without any sword, and another 
as having a sword fastened into its scabbard so 
that it could not be drawn out though several 
persons were tugging at it. Charles, besides his 
haughtiness and his insincerity, disgusted his people 
with the manner in which he carried on the war 
with France, in which his armies were soundly 
whipped, and his fleet, under the command of his 
favorite the Duke of Buckingham, sent home in 
disgrace. He entered, too, upon his course of 
illegal exaction in a more systematic way, and 
carried it forward more thoroughly than had ever 
been done before. Indeed, this was the word, 
"thorough," which his favorite after Buckingham's 
death, the great Earl of Strafford, and his ally, Arch- 
bishop Laud, invented as the name of the policy 
of government the king was pursuing. He was to 
be thorough in collecting the taxes ; thorough in 
imprisoning, fining, and torturing all that* refused 
him ; thorough in browbeating and putting down 
parliament ; all his proceedings in carrying out his 



52 THE THREE JUDGES. 

policy should be thoroughly done, and " thorough " 
should be its name. So, at last, the patience of the 
nation was exhausted. They saw it was not occa- 
sional acts, as under his predecessors, but a fixed, 
deliberate plan of lifting himself above all law, 
and becoming an absolute and irresponsible mon- 
arch. And so they took him in hand, thoroughly, 
too, and finally taught him and his mistaken 
advisers so thorough a lesson on that point that 
there is no danger that it will soon be forgotten 
again. 

It was two years before Charles could be per- 
suaded to convene another parliament ; and when 
he did, it was not in a temper to make them sub- 
missive to his demands. " I have called you to- 
gether," said he, "judging a parliament to be the 
ancient, the speediest, and the best way to give 
such supply as to secure ourselves and save our 
friends from imminent ruin. Every man must 
now do according to his conscience ; wherefore 
if you (which God forbid) should not do your duties 
in contributing what this state at this time needs, 
I must, in discharge of my conscience, use those 
other means which God has put into my hands to 
save that which the follies of other men may 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 53 

otherwise hazard to lose." The king's minister 
also said that the king his Majesty had chosen a 
parliamentary way to obtain supplies, not as the 
only way, but as the fittest ; not because he was 
destitute of other means, but because this was 
most agreeable to the goodness of his own most 
gracious disposition. " If this be deferred," he 
haughtily added, " necessity and the sword of the 
enemy make way to the others. Remember his 
Majesty's admonition ; I say, remember it." 

This was not just the right sort of talk to 
address to an English parliament, and he soon 
found it out. They did not threaten back ; they 
passed an act giving him the needful money, but 
resolved also that it should not be paid till he had 
formally recognized the rights of the people as 
guaranteed by Magna Charta, and pledged himself 
to redress abuses. For the purpose of adding 
weight to the measure, they put it into the ancient 
form of making a law, viz., a solemn petition to the 
king ; expressing their desires, to be ratified by his 
assent and signature. It consisted substantially 
of four articles : — 

I. That no man should hereafter be compelled 
to make or pay any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or 



54 THE THREE JUDGES. 

such like charge, without common consent by 
act of parliament. 

2. That no free man should be arrested or im- 
prisoned but in due process of law, and that if so 
imprisoned, he should be entitled to the writ of 
habeas corpus for his relief. 

3. That no soldiers or sailors should be quartered 
upon any person without his consent. 

4. That no person in time of peace should be 
tried or punished in any form by martial law. 

This great Petition of Right, as it was called, 
was sent up to the king for his approval. One 
would think he would not hesitate to grant it, 
unless he meant to be a tyrant. But he did, and 
sent it back not approved in the usual form of a 
law, but indorsed with a general statement that 
his Majesty would have right done according to the 
laws and customs of the realm, and that his 
subjects should have no cause to complain of any 
wrongs or oppressions. This was not satisfactory. 
The House saw in a moment that it was a designed 
evasion ; so they got the Lords to join them in 
asking for a more definite answer. Charles, find- 
ing that no business would be done till this was 
granted, finally yielded. He came into the par- 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 55 

liament, and, the Petition of Right being read to 
him, replied, in the usual old Norman form, " Soit 
droit fait, comme il est desire!' l " Whereupon," we 
are told, " there was a general shout, both of the 
Lords and Commons." 

This was his Majesty's golden hour. The people 
would have responded to those shouts all over the 
kingdom ; they would have forgiven all the past 
both in his own and his father's reign, and have 
granted him everything in the way of loving hom- 
age and support he ought to have desired, if he 
had only been sincere in confirming, and after- 
wards in observing, this great law. But, alas ! 
neither of these was true. He was not sincere in 
assenting to it. He did not mean to keep it. He 
wanted to get his money, and he thought it a nice 
piece of " kingcraft " to do it by deceit and 
treachery. If he lost his head in consequence, 
whom had he to blame but himself? 

Parliament was now in good humor, and pro- 
ceeded to give the king his taxes. Before, how- 
ever, they passed the act for tunnage and poundage, 
they thought it necessary to remonstrate against 
the manner in which it had previously been 

1 Let right be done, as is desired. 



$6 THE THREE JUDGES. 

collected, without authority of law. This made 
him very angry, and he suddenly called them 
before him, and said he would not hear any more 
remonstrances ; tunnage and poundage was his 
by ancient prerogative, and was not included in 
the Petition of Right. So saying, he prorogued 
the parliament, and dissipated in a moment all the 
bright hopes which had begun to dawn upon the 
nation. 

Then he went on collecting the money, and pun- 
ishing, through his tyrannical courts, those who 
refused to pay it, just as before. When the par- 
liament came together,' they protested against it, 
and also against certain illegal doings of Laud and 
his bishops. Charles was angry again at this, and 
sent a message commanding adjournment for a 
week. The House refused, saying that it was for 
them, and not for the king, to adjourn them, and 
proceeded to complete their remonstrance against 
tunnage and poundage. But the speaker refused 
to put it to vote, saying the king had forbidden 
him to do so. This made a new excitement. Two 
of the members seized the speaker and held him 
in his chair. He burst into tears, and blubbered 
out, " I will not say I will not put the vote, but I 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 57 

dare not." Meanwhile the door was locked, so 
that neither he could get out, nor the king's mes- 
senger, the " black rod," could get in. The remon- 
strance was then read, and passed by the shouts 
of the members. By this time the king had sent 
a force to break down the doors, but the Commons 
had finished their work and opened of themselves, 
when instantly their dissolution was pronounced. 
Charles was now in a rage. He called his op- 
ponents vipers, and finally dared to arrest nine 
of the foremost, and commit them to prison. 
Their houses were searched, their private offices 
broken open, and their papers seized. Three 
of these were tried in the Star Chamber Court 
for seditious talk against the king, were fined 
from five hundred to two thousand pounds apiece, 
and ordered to lie in prison as long as the king 
pleased. 

The king, under the bad advice of his ministers, 
now determined to do without parliament alto- 
gether. From 1629 to 1640 he did not once call 
them together, but went on with the government 
in his own bad and unlawful fashion. It would be 
tedious to relate what wrongs were done under 
his sanction and by the aid of his infamous judges 



58 THE THREE JUDGES. 

and courts. All the old ways of getting money 
were practiced, and a great many new ones, equally 
unlawful, Were contrived. His father had taken it 
into his foolish head that the plague in London 
had happened because the city was so big, and 
resolved that it should not grow any more. He 
issued a proclamation forbidding any new houses 
to be built there. Charles revived this idea, and 
imposed heavy fines on all such houses, and 
ordered the houses themselves pulled down. One 
of the most prolific sources of gain was from fines 
and confiscations of those who were opposed to 
the established church and its ceremonies. They 
were brought before the High Commission Court, 
and not only deprived of their property, but 
subjected to the most barbarous punishments. 
One Puritan minister, for writing a book against 
the queen and her bishops, was publicly whipped, 
put two hours in the pillory, his ears cut off, his 
nostrils split, and both cheeks branded, with a hot 
iron, S S, i. e., " Sower of Sedition," then ordered 
back to his dungeon, to lie there for life. Another 
man, a lawyer, for writing a book against the 
theater and plays, which was thought to be dis- 
respectful to the king, was fined ten thousand 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 59 

pounds, branded in the forehead, and had his nose 
slit and his ears cropped. Even one of the 
bishops of the established church was repeatedly 
fined very heavy sums for his opinions, and 
ordered to be imprisoned in the Tower of London 
during the pleasure of his Majesty. 

So, all over the kingdom, the course of illegal 
exaction of moneys, and of cruel punishments 
under the supple tools of tyranny, went on. There 
was no parliament to restrain it. The ancient 
laws of the land, the sacred and oft-confirmed 
Magna Charta, and the great Petition of Right 
which Charles himself had solemnly ratified, were 
wholly disregarded and violated. But at length, 
one man, eminent for his high character, his an- 
cient family, and his wealth, dared to come forth 
in open resistance, and to take issue with the king, 
before the nation, in the highest court of law. 
This was the famous John Hampden. He refused 
to pay the ship-money tax which had been laid 
upon him, and defended the suit in a public trial 
before the court. All the opponents of the king's 
tyranny gathered round him with their sympathy and 
support. Thirty other gentlemen among his neigh- 
bors also refused to pay the tax, and made common 



60 THE THREE JUDGES. 

cause with him. The king dared not treat him 
with his customary violence, and was obliged to 
let the case abide the issue of trial. But he knew 
well the character of his judges ; indeed, he had 
extorted an opinion from them beforehand in favor 
of the legality of the tax. Mr. Hampden, as 
might have been expected, lost his case before the 
court, but won it before the nation. An excite- 
ment was awakened, a resolute spirit of resistance 
created not only against the ship-money, but all 
the other unlawful taxes, which was never abated 
till they and their author were swept away forever. 
It was during these days that so many of 
Charles's subjects left the country to find an 
asylum in New England. It is estimated that no 
fewer than four thousand persons, in these ten 
years, came hither, and founded the little colonies 
which have now become rich and populous states. 
It is said that seven ships at one time lay in the 
Thames ready to set sail, among whose passengers 
were Hampden and his cousin Oliver Cromwell ; 
but the king, growing jealous of the departure of 
so many of his subjects, issued his proclamation 
forbidding any more to leave without his permis- 
sion. Ah, he little knew what a mistake was that ! 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 6 1 

He had better have let them go ; nay, if neces- 
sary, have sold his crown itself to raise money to 
help them away. 

And now another wild scheme of the king's was 
entered upon. His father's attempt to establish 
Episcopacy in Scotland, by force solely of his royal 
prerogative, had, as might have been expected, 
proved an utter failure. The spirit of John Knox, 
who had confronted his grandmother, Mary Queen 
of Scots, with such indomitable courage and zeal, 
still prevailed through that nation, and they would 
never submit to any dictation from abroad in 
matters of religion. But Charles and his minister, 
Archbishop Laud, conceived the project of carrying 
out and perfecting James's undertaking. Up to 
Edinburgh he went, had himself crowned King of 
Scotland, re-established the dioceses and bishops, 
appointed a service-book for public worship, and 
ordered it to be used in all the churches of that 
kingdom. The Scotch protested against all this 
as a violation of their rights, and as wholly illegal, 
but all to no avail. On Sunday, July 23, 1637, the 
day appointed for the new service, an immense 
crowd gathered at St. Giles's church in Edinburgh, 
which Laud had converted into a cathedral. All 



62 THE THREE JUDGES. 

the bishops, lords, and magistrates were present. 
But no sooner did the Dean begin to read the ser- 
vice, than an uproar broke out. The people 
clapped their hands and hooted ; they threw 
sticks at the head of the clergyman. One strong 
woman, named Jenny Geddes, caught up her joint- 
stool and hurled it at his head, crying, " A pope ! 
a pope ! D'ye say the mass at my lug." *■ The 
stool did not hit him ; otherwise, says quaint old 
Fuller, "the same book might have occasioned his 
death, and prescribed the form of his burial." 
All through Scotland the new service was re- 
ceived in much the same way. Charles was 
terribly offended, and forbade the holding of any 
other divine service till his pleasure was made 
known ; and to punish the people of Edinburgh 
he ordered that the seat of government should 
be removed to Stirling. 

Immediately all Scotland was in commotion. 
The people everywhere ran together to renew the 
old "National Covenant" which had been made 
some fifty years before against Popery, in which 
they bound themselves never to submit to what 
they called idolatry, or to any of the rites, cere- 

1 Scotch word for ear. 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 63 

monies, or usages identified with it, or to any- 
foreign prince, prelate, or authority whatsoever. 
Long and fierce were the debates and contentions 
that followed. The king tried every means to 
browbeat, to cajole, and to bribe the nation. He 
assured them of his good intentions ; he promised 
that if they would give up the covenant, he would 
withdraw the most obnoxious part of his scheme ; 
he stormed and threatened, but in vain. The 
excitement increased. Hearing that the king was 
gathering troops to compel their obedience, the 
Scots, too, began to arm. The strong castles of 
Edinburgh, Stirling, Dumbarton, etc., were seized 
and manned, and finally an army of not less than 
twenty thousand men took up their march toward 
the border to meet Charles before he should leave 
England. He was not able to raise an equal 
force, but his troops advanced to the line, and 
then a parley was had. After a great deal of 
negotiation, a sort of peace was patched up ; but 
it was soon broken. Charles did not mean to keep 
his promises, but only to gain time. 

The king was now in straits on every hand. 
His proceedings in Scotland had increased, if 
possible, his unpopularity at home ; his council 



64 THE THREE JUDGES. 

and supporters were quarreling with each other, 
insults had been offered the nation from abroad, 
and how to get on further he did not know. 
Finally, with great reluctance, he began to think 
of calling parliament again. He got his lords 
together, and asked them their opinion. " If," 
said he, " this parliament should prove as untoward 
as some have lately been, will you then assist me 
in such extraordinary ways as in that extremity 
shall . be thought fit ? " They all said " yes," and 
so the parliament was summoned. 

They met in April, 1640, eleven years after the 
last parliament was dismissed. The king told 
them his wants were pressing, and they must give 
him some money forthwith, and grant the taxes 
for life ; and then, if they must, they might take up 
such grievances as they had, promising that he 
would give them a very gracious consideration. 
But this parliament was even more unmanageable 
than the last. Eleven years of misgovernment 
had added a long list of wrongs to be investigated 
and righted, and they set about this business 
in good earnest. Charles stormed and scolded, 
but they would not mind him ; and so he suddenly 
sent 'them home again. 



ILLEGAL ACTS OF THE KING. 65 

Then he took up his Scotch war anew. He 
raised a large army, and marched northward. 
But the Covenanters were as nimble as he ; they 
recalled their old officers and their men, and 
marched to meet him. A battle was fought near 
the border, and the English defeated. The Scots 
followed them slowly and carefully, as they re- 
treated homeward, not wishing to make war with 
England, but determined to resist the king and 
his forces. Then followed another scene of nego- 
tiation and attempted cheating, but the Scots beat 
him in these as well as in arms. And so at length, 
to his infinite mortification, with a powerful enemy 
moving down upon him, and with failing resources 
at home, he was compelled once more to resort to 
the parliament. This was the last time. It met, 
but it did not dissolve again till it had put an end 
both to Charles's troubles and to himself. 
5 




sj9£> 



CHAPTER III. 



RESISTANCE OF THE PARLIAMENT. 




HE parliament which met on the 3d of 
November, 1640, was the most memora- 
ble one in English history. It performed 
greater deeds, was subjected to greater changes, 
and continued in authority longer than any other 
before or since. From the latter circumstance it 
is generally known as the " Long Parliament," last- 
ing, though with some interruptions, nearly nine- 
teen years, until March, 1659. 

The kins; bad tried his utmost to have members 
chosen to it who were favorable to him, but with 
very poor success, two only of his courtiers gaining 
seats in it. On the contrary, the people, now thor- 
oughly aroused, had elected their strongest cham- 
pions, — men like Hampden, who had suffered from 
the government, and others well known for their 
devotion to liberty and law. All of them were 



RESISTANCE OF THE PARLIAMENT. 6j 

members of the established church, though not a 
few held liberal sentiments in matters of religion, 
which ultimately made them dissenters. One of 
their first acts was to pass an order that none 
should sit as a member who did not celebrate the 
communion according to the usages of the church 
of England, and shortly after the entire body re- 
ceived the sacrament from the Dean of Westmin- 
ster. They felt that they were about engaging in 
serious business, and they chose to begin as reli- 
gious men with devotions befitting the solemnity 
of their position. 

Charles, as usual, was importunate in his requests 
for money, as the first thing, that he might resist 
the advance of the Scottish army, and meet other 
pressing wants of the government. But the par- 
liament paid very little attention to his demands. 
They were not afraid of the Scots, whom they 
looked upon as their friends, having a common 
cause with themselves. So they went to work at 
once upon the grievances of the nation. Commit- 
tees were appointed to hear reports of these, and 
consider what to do. Complaints and petitions for 
redress came pouring in from every quarter. No 
long time* was spent in beginning the work of 
reform. 



68 THE THREE JUDGES. 

First, the victims of the Star Chamber, who had 
been fined, mutilated, and imprisoned, were sent 
for, and the judges and prosecutors ordered to ac- 
count for their cruelties. Their sentences were 
pronounced illegal, the sufferers restored to their 
professions, and damages awarded them of five and 
six thousand pounds apiece, which the members 
of the court were compelled to pay. Then the 
committee on religion took up the tyrannical pro- 
ceedings of Laud and his bishops,, in introducing 
changes in worship, and punishing the ministers 
and others who would not conform. These pro- 
ceedings were declared unlawful, and Laud, though 
an archbishop and the special favorite of the 
king, was impeached for high treason, and sent to 
prison in the Tower. It began to be considered 
even whether the bishops should not be deprived of 
their votes in the House of Lords on all but spiritual 
affairs. A monster petition, signed by fifteen thou- 
sand names, was sent from London, begging that 
the tyrannical power of the hierarchy might be cut 
up root and branch, which from that phrase was 
called the " root and branch petition." Another, 
signed by seven hundred clergymen of the estab- 
lished church, was to a similar effect. The king 



RESISTANCE OF THE PARLIAMENT. 69 

was much alarmed and incensed. He summoned 
the two Houses to his palace at Whitehall, and gave 
them a long, scolding lecture, telling them not to 
meddle with the bishops' votes ; but it only made 
matters worse. The measure was not carried just 
then, but a few months afterward it passed in a 
still more stringent form, expelling the bishops 
from the House of Lords altogether. 

The parliament next fell upon Laud's great col- 
league in cruelty, the Earl of Strafford. This able 
but unscrupulous man had once been a patriot, and 
an associate of Hampden and Cromwell, and other 
friends of the people. But Charles contrived to 
win him by bribes of money and office to his side, 
and, like all traitors, he soon went the very farthest 
in urging the king to his arbitrary proceedings. 
He it was who invented the word * thorough " as 
the name of this detestable policy. The king, find- 
ing that he could not overawe the parliament, sent 
for Strafford, who was up in the north looking after 
the Scotch army, to come and see if he could not 
manage them. Strafford came reluctantly, for he 
began to feel that he might get into trouble. But 
the Commons were ready for him, and just as soon 
as he entered the House of Lords, and strode 



JO THE THREE JUDGES. 

haughtily to his seat, there came a messenger from 
the Lower House to impeach him in the name of 
the Commons of England of high treason and 
other crimes. Instantly he was compelled to kneel 
and hear his accusation, then to give up his sword 
and march off on foot to prison in the custody of 
an officer. A few weeks afterward he was brought 
to trial in Westminster Hall. Charles came to 
attend it, and do what he could for his friend ; but 
it only increased the prejudice against him. Then 
the king sent for the parliament to his palace, and 
told them he would not consent to Strafford's con- 
demnation ; but the Commons voted that this was 
an insult, and an infringement upon their rights, 
and all the more zealously pressed the prosecution. 
The earl was pronounced guilty, and sentenced to 
be beheaded. Charles dared not interfere again ; 
the popular excitement was too threatening, and so 
the victim's head was cut off upon the scaffold on 
Tower Hill. 

Meanwhile other measures of reform were taken 
up. Determined that the king should not again 
attempt to rule without a parliament, they passed a 
law that that body should meet every three years ; 
and if he would not call it at the proper time, it 



RESISTANCE OF THE PARLIAMENT. J I 

should he done by certain officers designated, 
without him. This was an undoubted innovation 
on ancient usage, and Charles was very angry. He 
refused at first to consent to it, but was obliged to 
yield. The judges of the law court who had com- 
pelled Mr. Hampden to pay the ship-money were 
arrested, and the chief judge sentenced to pay ten 
thousand pounds as a fine, to escape punishment 
for high treason. The unlawful taxes and other 
customs by which money was wrung from the peo- 
ple were abolished. Finally, to crown the whole, 
a law was enacted that the king should have no 
power to dissolve the parliament without their own 
consent. This was the finishing stroke ; it made 
the parliament absolutely independent of him, and 
enabled them at their leisure to go on and do what 
they found necessary to do without any fear of 
molestation from him. 

But why did he not put a stop to all this by dis- 
solving them before, as he used to ? First, because 
he hoped to get on without quarreling with them 
again. He wanted, above all things, to have them 
give him a regular and sufficient revenue, as they 
had done other sovereigns. He would promise 
them anything almost if they would do this ; and 



J2 THE THREE JUDGES. 

if they could have trusted his word a moment, they 
would doubtless have done it. They were no ene- 
mies to their king; they wanted to respect and 
maintain the throne for the safety and honor of the 
nation. But they were tired of the preposterous 
claims of its divine right, and its supremacy over 
all law, and smarted under the tyranny it had ex- 
ercised, and they resolved that these things should 
cease. So they would not give him his revenue 
till he would redress these grievances. He, how- 
ever, hoped he should weary them into compliance ; 
and therefore, though strongly urged by some of his 
headstrong courtiers, he put off the dissolution, and 
even consented to the downfall of his friends, and 
the repeal of many of his favorite measures, rather 
than lose his last chance of gaining his end. 
But soon matters went so far that he dared not 
dissolve the parliament. The whole kingdom was 
in commotion. Thousands of the citizens of 
London were ready to rush to arms in a moment, 
to defend that body, and put down all opposition 
to it. And, lastly, after assenting to the bill that 
it should not be dissolved without its own consent, 
he could not do it. The immediate reason for 
signing this bill was, that he wanted money to 



RESISTANCE OF THE PARLIAMENT. 73 

give to the army in the north, and the Scottish 
troops, who had agreed if they were paid for their 
time and services, they would go home. Par- 
liament was ready to vote money for this, but 
they would have to borrow it. The merchants 
of London would lend it on the pledge of par- 
liament as security ; but " what," they said, " if the 
king dissolves it, will the security be good for ? " 
So, at last, in his great desire to be rid of the 
Scots, Charles agreed to relinquish the right to 
dissolve the parliament without its consent, and 
signed the bill. It was a fatal step for him, but 
it was the saving of the nation. The Londoners 
lent their money, and the Commons, feeling now 
comparatively secure, finally granted the king his 
coveted " tunnage and poundage," and various 
other revenues, among them a poll tax ; but 
coupled with this, acts abolishing the infamous 
courts of Star Chamber "and High Commission. 
He tried to refuse the last, but the House voted 
that he must" sign all three, or none at all, and 
he was obliged once more to submit. 

A few weeks after this a dreadful affair occurred 
in Ireland, which tended very greatly to increase 
the popular jealousy and prejudice against the 



74 THE THREE JUDGES. 

king. A conspiracy was formed against the Prot- 
estants of that country, and forty thousand, of all 
ages and sexes, were massacred in cold blood. 
The leaders of this outrage pretended that they 
had a warrant for it from Charles, which was 
doubtless false, though they had been his strong 
supporters and friends. Parliament at once voted 
to send an army to put down the rebellion, and, 
thinking that they, too, were in danger of assassi- 
nation, surrounded themselves with a guard of 
soldiers for their protection. This again angered 
the king, who said he did not see why they wanted 
a guard, for his presence ought to be a sufficient 
protection ; if not, he would appoint an officer of 
the militia to command the soldiers. But the 
Commons replied that they would not trust him to 
do this, but would appoint one for themselves. 
Then they drew up an elaborate statement of all 
the grievances the nation had suffered under his 
reign, called a " Grand Petition and Remon- 
strance," in two hundred and six articles, and a 
recital of what still remained to be clone for their 
redress, and sent it to him. He made a long and 
angry reply ; and then they voted to print the 
Remonstrance, and distribute it throughout the 



RESISTANCE OF THE PARLIAMENT. 75 

kingdom, and especially through the army, that 
all men might see the justice of their cause. 
Still stronger suspicions were aroused by the king's 
attempt to get possession of the Tower of London, 
which was no less a fortress than a prison, by 
dismissing the governor, and appointing one of his 
men to that office. This stirred up a riot in 
London itself; the young men and apprentices 
turning out by thousands with arms, and marching 
to defend the parliament, and shouting out their 
defiance to the king's governor, and his guard. 

Next followed a gross insult to parliament itself, 
by the king in person. He singled out five of the 
members of the House of Commons, as his special 
enemies, and sent a message demanding their 
arrest for high treason. This not being done, next 
day he gathered a band of soldiers, and, accom- 
panied by a crowd of courtiers and idlers, marched 
to the House, knocked at the door, and went in. 
He strode along to the speaker's chair, saying, 
" By your leave, Mr. Speaker, I must borrow your 
chair a little." The members all rose with un- 
covered heads before the king. He looked eagerly 
round to find the accused persons. " John Pym ! 
Denzil Hollis ! " he cried. There was no answer. 



76 THE THREE JUDGES. 

Turning to the speaker, he asked, " Where are 
they ? Do you see them ? I have come for them, 
and will have them." They had, in fact, heard 
just before that the king was coming, and had 
escaped. The speaker fell on his knees, and told 
his Majesty that he could neither see nor speak 
anything but as the House directed. " Well, 
then," said the king, " I see the birds are flown, but 
I expect you to send them to me immediately, 
or I will take my own course to find them." In- 
stantly a cry arose on every side, " Privilege ! 
Privilege ! " The House adjourned forthwith, and 
appointed a committee to consider the proceeding. 
The excitement rose to fever heat in the city and 
country. Everybody felt that fighting had got to 
be done, and began, on the one side and the other, 
to prepare for it. Six days after this the king and 
his family left his palace at Whitehall, and did not 
return to it again till he came as a prisoner. 

Parliament now passed the law excluding the 
bishops from the House of Lords, another to raise 
more troops against the Irish, and a third to put 
the command of all the forces into the hands 
of officers appointed by themselves. This last 
the king resisted with all his might, as an in- 



RESISTANCE OF THE PARLIAMENT. JJ 

fringement on the prerogative of the sovereign, 
enjoyed from time immemorial ; which, no doubt, it 
was. He. swore he would not trust them with the 
militia a single hour. They begged of him to 
return to London, where they could communicate 
with him more readily ; but he would not. On the 
contrary, he planned to get possession of Hull, 
on the eastern coast, where were magazines of 
arms and ammunition ; but parliament was before- 
hand with him, and seized the place themselves. 
Failing in this, he retired to York, where he spent 
the summer in raising contributions from his 
friends, enlisting troops, and in every way possible 
getting ready for war. At last, on the 22d of 
August, he set up his standard at Nottingham, and 
called on all his faithful subjects to resort to it 
in defense of his crown, and to subdue his re- 
bellious parliament and their supporters. 

It is not necessary for our purpose to narrate at 
length the events of the bloody struggle that 
followed. The forces which the two parties 
managed to bring into the field were not greatly 
unequal. Those of the king, however, comprised 
a larger portion of the nobles and old army 
officers, as well as cavaliers accustomed to war. 



73 



THE THREE JUDGES. 





CAVALIER. 



DRAGOON. 



The first considerable battle was that of Edgehill, 
where one wing of each army was defeated, and 
both sides claimed the victory. Charles then 
took up his abode at Oxford, and under the fiery 
Prince Rupert and his cavalry, ravaged all the 
country around. In one of the fights that oc- 
curred, Mr. Hampden, who commanded a body 
of horse as colonel, was mortally wounded, and 
soon after died, to the great grief of the nation. 

Charles now conceived the plan of supplanting 
the parliament at Westminster, by calling a new 
one to meet at Oxford. At first he thought of 
trying to dissolve the former, notwithstanding the 



RESISTANCE OF THE PARLIAMENT. 79 

law, which he had expressly sanctioned, that it 
should not be dissolved without its consent. But 
his advisers dissuaded him from this, as a measure 
which even his own party would not approve, and 
which would be sure to cost him more popularity 
than he would gain. He was obliged to content 
himself, therefore, with his new Oxford parliament, 
without attempting to meddle with the other. 
Forty-three peers and one hundred and eighteen 
commoners assembled at his call, including such 
of his adherents as had deserted the regular 
parliament ; but even so, their number was not 
over one half that of the latter. However, they 
assumed the functions of a parliament, and went 
through the usual forms of legislation, voted money 
and soldiers to the king, etc. ; but their authority 
was acknowledged, of course, only in those districts 
where Charles's troops had possession. In ad- 
dition to this*, they joined the king in addressing 
proposals for a compromise to the Westminster 
parliament, which the latter repelled as an insult, 
and then after a " declaration " by this, and a 
" counter declaration " by that, this " mongrel par- 
liament," as Charles himself called it, was dis- 
missed ; and that was the last of it. 



80 THE THREE JUDGES. 

The two Houses now made proposals to the 
Scots to come to their assistance ; and after a 
great deal of negotiation, and accepting the Cove- 
nant as a solemn league between the two nations, 
succeeded in enlisting their interference. In the 
spring (1644) the Scotch army marched into 
England, and joined the parliament troops near 
York, and soon after the great battle of Marston 
Moor was fought, in which the king's forces were 
entirely defeated. It was in this battle that Oliver 
Cromwell and his famous regiment of " Iron- 
sides " first distinguished themselves, and by their 
invincible pluck and heroism won the day for the 
parliament. In the west of England, however, the 
forces of the latter were less successful, and a series 
of disasters ended in a shameful surrender to the 
king. These reverses excited great discontents 
against their commanders, who, it was thought, 
were not sufficiently zealous in prosecuting the 
war. To get rid of these, parliament passed 
what was called the " Self-Denying Ordinance," 
prohibiting members of that body, with some few 
exceptions, from holding command in the field. 
Coupled with this was a plan for remodeling 
the army, in which not only a far better class 



RESISTANCE OF THE PARLIAMENT. 8 1 

of men was enlisted as soldiers, but a more 
thorough system of training and discipline es- 
tablished. It was this, especially, which raised 
the army to the highest state of efficiency, and 
made it at last, under its illustrious leader, Crom- 
well, absolutely invincible. 

Just at this time, one of the endless disputes 
about church affairs brought poor old Archbishop 
Laud into notice again. He had been lying in 
prison in the Tower some three years, under 
the charge of treason. The Lords, still recog- 
nizing his authority sent for him* to install certain 
clergymen into office ; but the king ordered him 
not to do it. He chose to obey Charles rather 
than the parliament, whereupon the latter revived 
their old charges of treason, and had him tried, 
condemned, and sentenced to the block ; and he, 
who had been the means of plundering, torturing, 
and putting to death so many innocent men, was 
now made to taste the bitterness of the cup him- 
self. He was beheaded in the Tower, amid the ex- 
ecrations of all England. 

The Scots, now, fearing that the parliament 
might go too far, recommended making peace 
with the king. A large number of commissioners 
6 



82 THE THREE JUDGES. • 

were therefore appointed on both sides, and tried a 
long time to agree upon some terms of reconcil- 
iation. But there were many points on which 
neither party would yield an inch. The par- 
liament insisted on the abolition of the episcopacy, 
the adoption of a new liturgy, and a new form 
of church government, and that the king should 
subscribe the national Covenant. He refused 
peremptorily each of these, and, on his part, in- 
sisted on having the command of the army and 
navy, on managing the Irish war, etc. Of course, 
the negotiations failed, and both sides prepared for 
war again. Not long after, the great battle of 
Naseby was fought, in which the king was over- 
whelmingly defeated. He fled to Wales, and 
after that to Scotland, where he had many friends, 
and where the Earl of Montrose had won many 
successes against the Covenanters. Soon, how- 
ever, Charles returned to England again, and 
after a great deal of marching and skirmishing, 
in which his affairs waxed worse and worse, he 
was finally compelled to go and give himself up 
to the Scotch army at Newark, where he hoped 
to find protection. They received him respectfully, 
but soon let the parliament know where he was. 



RESISTANCE OF THE PARLIAMENT. 83 

Then followed another season of negotiation. 
Charles first tried to win the Scots over to his 
side, but failed. Then he sent a very smooth and 
humble letter to parliament, offering to yield all 
the points in dispute, and even proposed to come 
up to London, if he might do it " with safety, free- 
dom, and honor," and comply with the two Houses 
in everything which might be for the good of his 
subjects. But the parliament understood him too 
well to make any promises. In fact, they knew 
that he was at this very time corresponding with 
the Papists in Ireland, urging them to come over 
and help him, and offering to pawn to them his 
kingdoms to raise money for them for that pur- 
pose. With the Scots, too, he was trying to 
negotiate, pretending that he was thinking of 
taking the Covenant, and only needed to have 
some conscientious scruples removed, and request- 
ing some of their theologians to argue the matter 
for his instruction. But it all came to nought, and 
finally the Scots, on the promise of being paid for 
their services by the parliament, resolved to give up 
Charles to them, and return to Scotland. Thirty- 
six cart-loads of silver, amounting to two hundred 
thousand pounds, were accordingly sent them at 



84 THE THREE JUDGES. 

York, for which they gave a receipt, and started 
for home. 1 

Meanwhile the vacancies in parliament having 

1 The king was sent to Holmby House in Northampton- 
shire, where he was kept in a sort of honorable confinement, 
though allowed to walk or ride anywhere in the vicinity that 
he pleased. The following account of what it cost to support 
him for twenty days, will show that he did not suffer from 
want while there. 

"An Estimate of the Expences of his Majestie and his 
Retynewe, at Holmby for twenty dayes, commencing 13 
February, and ending 4 March, inclusive, 1647. By the 
Committee of the Revenue. 

His Majestie's diet of xxviij dishes at xxxv/. £ s . d. 

per diem, 700 o o 

The King's voydy, 32 o o 

The lords' diet of xx dayes, 520 o o 

For the Clarke of the green cloth, Kitchen and 

Spicery, a messe of vij dishes, 40 o o 

Dyetts for the household and chamber officers and 

the guard, 412 o o 

Board, wages, for common household servants, pott 

and scowrers, and turnbroaches, 36 o o 

Badges of court, and riding wages, 140 o o 

For linen for his Majestie's table, the lords and the 

diets, 273 o o 

For wheat, wood, and cole, 240 o o 

For all sorts of spicery store, wax-lights, torches 

and tallow-lights, . . 160 o o 

For pewter, brasse, and other necessaries incident 

to all offices, and for carriages, 447 o o 

£ 3000 o o" 



RESISTANCE OF THE PARLIAMENT. 85 

been filled by new elections, the Presbyterians 
found themselves in a majority, and, aided by a 
few royalists, imagined that the time had come for 
them to set up the Presbyterian system of gov- 
ernment and worship as the national religion, and 
put down all others. With this in view, they en- 
tered into negotiations with the king for his res- 
toration to power, if he would second their plan, 
and subscribe to the Covenant. Their chief ob- 
stacle, however, to this scheme, was Cromwell and 
the army, who were mostly Independents, and 
many of them republicans opposed to monarchy in 
any form. The Presbyterians resorted to various 
schemes to get rid of the army. They voted, on 
the plea that the war was over, to disband all but 
a few regiments ; that, except General Fairfax, there 
should be no officer superior to a colonel ; and that 
all the officers should take the Covenant. The 
army understood that all this was aimed at them 
and their commander, and forthwith broke up their 
camp, and marched directly toward London. The 
House, in alarm, ordered them not to come within 
twenty-five miles of that city, and that a con- 
siderable portion of the troops be sent away to 
Ireland ; but they could not enforce either order. 



86 THE THREE JUDGES. 

The army, in its turn, suspecting the intention 
of the House to restore the king, sent Ser- 
geant Joyce of Colonel Whalley's regiment to 
bring him to Windsor Castle, where he would be in 
their power ; but he soon contrived to escape to the 
Isle of Wight, in the hope ultimately of getting 
away to France. 

Then followed more negotiations, first with one 
party, then with another, the king seeking to get 
the best terms from all, and, as usual, trying to 
cheat them all. Finally he succeeded in getting the 
Scotch parliament to undertake in his behalf. The 
extreme Presbyterians and royalists there raised an 
army, and marched into England, not, as before, to 
oppose the king, but to restore him to the throne. 
Cromwell, however, was wide awake. He met 
them before they had advanced far, and inflicted 
on them a crushing defeat. This was the end 
of the king's party in Scotland. Cromwell was 
triumphantly received by the Covenanters in Ed- 
inburgh, and thanked as the preserver of the 
kingdom. 

Finally, Cromwell and the army, tired of the 
constant scheming of the king's friends in par- 
liament, and seeing that if the latter succeeded 



RESISTANCE OF THE PARLIAMENT. 8? 

their own safety would be endangered, and all 
the fruits of the long and desperate struggle 
through which the nation had passed would be lost, 
— finding, too, that plots and insurrections were 
going on all over England, which it required con- 
stant vigilanceto suppress, — came to the conclusion 
that decisive measures must be taken. An officer 
was sent with an armed force, who brought the 
king from the Isle of Wight, and confined him in 
Hurst Castle, on the main land. The army moved 
to London, and took up their quarters in the pal- 
aces and parks of the city. Then, one morning, a 
regiment of foot, commanded by Colonel Pride, and 
another of horse, under Colonel Rich, surrounded 
the Commons' House, and as the members arrived, 
such of them as had been engaged in the plan to 
restore the king were arrested, and sent away as 
prisoners. This violent procedure was called 
" Pride's Purge," and the fifty or sixty members 
who were left to go on with the parliament received 
the nickname of " The Rump." 

Shortly after this Charles was brought, by order 
of parliament, to Windsor Castle, and preparations 
made for the last act in the long and bloody drama. 
The republicans had now got their enemy in their 



88 THE THREE JUDGES. 

hands, and they were determined they would put 
it out of his power to abuse or to play false with 
them any more. On the ist of January, 1649, a 
committee of thirty-eight was appointed to draw 
up charges against him, and put him on trial for 
high crimes and misdemeanors. The House of 
Lords, now reduced to but a handful of members, 
unanimously rejected the bill ; but the Commons 
coolly voted that they were themselves the supreme 
power in the nation, as the representatives of the 
people, who alone were the source of all authority, 
and that what they voted was and should be lazv, 
whether king and lords concurred in it or not. On 
the 6th, the ordinance for the trial was passed, 
constituting a " High Court of Justice," before 
whom the august and solemn inquisition should be # 
held. That ordinance was as follows : — 

" Whereas it is notorious that Charles Stuart, 
now King of England, not content with those many 
encroachments which his predecessors had made on 
the people in their rights and freedoms, has had a 
wicked design totally to subvert the ancient and 
fundamental laws and liberties of this nation, and 
in their stead to introduce an arbitrary and tyran- 



RESISTANCE OF THE PARLIAMENT. 89 

nical government ; and that besides all other evil 
ways and means to bring this design to pass, he 
has prosecuted it with fire and sword, levying and 
maintaining a cruel war against the parliament and 
kingdom, whereby the country has been miserably 
wasted, the public treasure exhausted, trade de- 
cayed, thousands of people murdered, and infinite 
other mischiefs committed, for all which high and 
treasonable offenses the said Charles Stuart might 
long since have justly been brought to exemplary 
and condign punishment ; whereas, also, the par- 
liament, well hoping that the imprisonment of his 
person, after it had pleased God to deliver him into 
their hands, would have quieted the distempers of 
the kingdom, forbore to proceed judicially against 
him, but found by sad experience that their remiss- 
ness served only to encourage him and his accom- 
plices in the continuance of their evil practices, 
and in raising new commotions, rebellions, and inva- 
sions. For preventing, therefore, the like or greater 
inconveniences, and to the end no chief officer or 
magistrate whatever may hereafter presume trai- 
torously and maliciously to imagine or contrive the 
enslaving or destroying the English nation and to 
expect impunity for so doing, it is hereby ordained 



90 THE THREE JUDGES. 

and enacted by the Commons in parliament that 
[here follow the names of the persons] are hereby 
appointed and required to be commissioners and 
judges for hearing, trying, and adjudging the said 
Charles Stuart. And the said commissioners, or 
any twenty or more of them, are authorized and 
constituted a High Court of Justice, to meet and 
sit at such convenient time and place as by the 1 
said commissioners, or the major part of twenty or 
more of them, under their hands and seals shall be 
notified by public proclamation in the great Hall or 
Palace Yard at Westminster, and to adjourn from 
time to time, and from place to place, as the said 
High Court, or major part thereof, shall hold fit ; 
and to take order for charging him, the said Charles 
Stuart, with the crimes and treasons above men- 
tioned, and for receiving his personal answer there- 
to, and for examining witnesses upon oath, which 
the court has hereby authority to administer, and 
taking any other evidence concerning the same ; 
and thereupon, or in default of such answer, to 
proceed to final sentence, according to justice and 
the merit of the cause ; and such final sentence to 
execute, or cause to be executed, speedily and im- 
partially. And the said court is hereby authorized 



RESISTANCE OF THE PARLIAMENT. 9 1 

and required to appoint and direct all such officers, 
attendants, and other circumstances as they, or the 
major part of them, shall in any sort judge necessary 
or useful for the orderly and good managing the prem- 
ises. And Thomas Lord Fairfax, the general, and 
all officers and soldiers under his command, and all 
officers of justice and other well-affected persons, 
are hereby authorized and required to be aiding 
and assisting to the said court, in the due execution 
of the trust hereby committed. Provided that this 
act, and the authority hereby granted, continue in 
force one month from the making hereof, and no 
longer." 

Notwithstanding the grave significance of this 
ordinance, and the lowering clouds which were 
gathering from every side over his head, the unfor- 
tunate monarch did not even then suspect the seri- 
ousness of his condition. He was as merry as 
usual, and found time to give orders for saving the 
seeds of some Spanish melons, which he meant to 
have planted the next summer. As to being really 
tried by his subjects, he jested at the very idea, and 
boasted that he had three games to play still, the 
very least of which was sufficient to baffle his ene- 



9 2 



THE THREE JUDGES. 



mies. Alas ! he little knew the character of the 
men that were dealing with him. To them the 
matter was no jest. With earnest prayer to God 
they had entered upon their undertaking ; whether 
right or not, they believed themselves acting ac- 
cording to his will ; and they were about to perform 
it as those who expected to give account to him in 
the day when he will judge the hearts of all men. 




CHAPTER IV. 



THE KINGS TRIAL AND EXECUTION. 



&9o 


i2&2, 


s\ 


111 


gz. 


Js& 



HE High Court of Justice, appointed by 
the aforesaid ordinance for the trying of 
the king, was to consist of one hundred 
and thirty-five commissioners. But of all these, no 
more than eighty ever actually sat in it. Four 
were lords, three generals of the army, thirty-four 
colonels, four aldermen of London, twenty-two 
knights and baronets, others private citizens, and a 
few country gentlemen. 

It is remarkable how many members of this court 
were relatives of Cromwell. Ireton was his son-in- 
law, Jones and Disbrough his brothers-in-law, Whal- 
ley his cousin, etc. It is said that the whole num- 
ber directly or indirectly related to him was not 
less than twelve. He was himself the most con- 
spicuous member, and his numerous connections, as 
well as his great services and talents, gave him, 



94 " THE THREE JUDGES. 

of course, almost unbounded influence in the 
court. 

As the actions of the judges now come more 
conspicuously into notice, it seems to be a proper 
place for sketching briefly the previous history of 
the three with whom we are chiefly concerned, as 
having subsequently come to this country, viz., 
Wh alley, Goffe, and Dixwell. 

Edward Whalley was descended from a dis- 
tinguished family, and, as we have said, was a cousin 
of Cromwell, his mother being sister of Oliver's 
father. He was " brought up to merchandise," but 
when the war broke out he took arms on the par- 
liament side. " Probably," says his biographer, 
Noble, " his religious opinions determined him as 
much or more than any other consideration. And 
though the usage of arms must be new to him, yet 
he early distinguished himself in the parliament 
service, in many sieges and battles ; but in none 
more than in the battle of Naseby, in 1645, m which 
he charged and entirely defeated two divisions of 
the royal horse, though supported by Prince Ru- 
pert, who commanded the reserve ; for which par- 
liament, January 21, 1646, voted him to be a colonel 
of horse ; and May 9, the following year, they gave 



THE KING S TRIAL AND EXECUTION. 95 

him the thanks of the House, and a hundred pounds 
to purchase two horses, for his brilliant action at 
Banbury, which he took by storm, and afterward 
marched to Worcester, which city surrendered to 
him July 23 following. Cromwell confided so 
much to him that he committed the person of the 
king to his care. The loyalists have charged him 
with severity to his royal prisoner, but the monarch 
himself, in a letter he left behind him when he 
made his escape, fully exculpates him from that 
charge. 

" At the battle of Dunbar, fought September 3, 
1650, he with Monk commanded the foot, and 
greatly contributed to completely defeat the Scotch 
army. In that battle he was wounded in the wrist, 
and had his horse killed under him. Cromwell left 
him in Scotland with the rank of commissary-gen- 
eral, and gave him the command of four regiments 
of horse, with which he performed many actions 
that gained him great honor. 

" He continued a steady friend to his cousin 
Oliver after he had raised himself to the sovereign- 
ty, and was intrusted by him with the government 
of the counties of Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, 
Warwick, and Leicester, by the name of Major- 



96 the three judges. 

General ; an important office, in which he was so 
assiduous that, as he himself says, he did not leave 
a vagrant in a whole county. He was one of the 
representatives for Nottinghamshire in the parlia- 
ments held in 1654 and 1656. The Protector made 
him commissary-general for Scotland, and called 
him up to his Other House." 

" He was," says Rev. Dr. Bacon, " colonel of that 
regiment in the Protector's army in which Richard 
Baxter was chaplain, and between him and the 
author of the Saints' Rest there was an intimate 
friendship, not only while Baxter continued in the 
army, but afterward, when Whalley had become, 
under the protectorate of his cousin Cromwell, one 
of the chief officers of the empire. To him, in 
token of their continued friendship, Baxter dedi- 
cated one of his works in an epistle which is one of 
the most beautiful examples of that kind of compo- 
sition. Alluding to the honors which then clus- 
tered upon the head of the veteran warrior, he said, 
' Think not that your greatest trials are how over. 
Prosperity hath its peculiar temptations, by which 
it hath foiled many that stood unshaken in the 
storms of adversity. The tempter who hath had 
you on the waves will now assault you in the calm, 



THE KING S TRIAL AND EXECUTION. 97 

and hath his last game to play on the mountain till 
nature cause you to descend. Stand this charge, 
and you win the day.' How beautiful the predic- 
tion, but how short-sighted ! " 

Whalley was a Puritan of the Puritans ; a man 
of devout piety and unimpeachable integrity. None 
of his bitterest enemies accuse him of any wrong, 
save his ^opposition to the king. His age is not 
stated, but he was probably one of the oldest mem- 
bers of the court. He had a son, who was member 
of parliament in 1659, and a daughter, who married 
General Goffe. 

William Goffe was the son of a Puritan minis- 
ter in Sussex-. Though not liberally educated, he 
made such attainments in literature and science as 
to gain for him the honorary degree of Master of 
Arts at Oxford University. He was bound ap- 
prentice to a merchant in London, but on the 
breaking out of the war entered the army, and soon 
rose to distinction, becoming successively quarter- 
master, colonel, and major-general. 

In the battle of Dunbar, Cromwell gave him the 
command of his old regiment, the original " Iron- 
sides ; " and in describing the battle, says, " Our 
foot, after they had discharged their first duty, be- 
7 



98 THE THREE JUDGES. 

ing overpowered with the enemy, received some 
repulse, which they soon recovered ; but my own 
regiment, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel 
Goffe and Major White, did come seasonably in, 
and at push of pike did repel the stoutest regi- 
ment the enemy had there, merely with the courage 
which the Lord was pleased to give, which proved 
a great amazement to the residue of their foot, this 
being the first action between the foot." 

Goffe's talents and activity, together with an 
unusual gift of public speaking, made him very 
popular with the soldiers. Cromwell had great 
confidence in him, and intrusted him with several 
important undertakings, among which was that of 
expelling the members of the Little Parliament, in 
company with Colonel White. He was one of the 
eleven major-generals appointed to govern the 
kingdom, having the counties of Hampshire, Sus- 
sex, and Berkshire assigned to his command. Twice 
was he elected to parliament, and subsequently 
made a member of Cromwell's Other House, or 
House of Lords. By many he was looked upon 
as the proper person to succeed to the protectorate 
after Cromwell's death. His wife was daughter of 
General Whalley, a lady eminent for her fidelity 



THE KING'S TRIAL AND EXECUTION. 99 

and piety, and every way worthy of her illustrious 
father and husband. 

John Dixwell was a wealthy gentleman of 
Kent, who entered the parliamentary army in op- 
position to the king, and rose to the rank of colonel. 
He served also as sheriff of the county of Kent, and 
was elected to parliament in 1654. Comparatively 
little is known of his history until he was appointed 
one of the judges of the king. He was not married 
till after his flight to New England. 

These three may justly be regarded as specimens 
of the men who were called to this celebrated 
tribunal. They were all able, devout, anjl terribly in 
earnest. Apart from their hatred of tyranny and 
their religious principles, little has been or can be 
said against them. If it be conceded that a king 
ought ever to be brought to trial for his crimes 
•against the liberties and laws of his realm, these 
were the men who were worthy to do it. They 
addressed themselves to this stern duty with a 
dignity and solemnity befitting the occasion. 

The place assigned for the trial was Westminster 
Hall, the grand old apartment which has witnessed 
more famous pageants and ceremonies than any 
other in England. It was once a part of the 



100 THE THREE JUDGES. 

royal palace of King William Rufus, and is now a 
portion of the parliament house in London. Here 
William Wallace was tried and condemned, Sir 
Thomas More, the protector Somerset, Guy Fawkes 
and his conspirators, the Earls of Essex and 
Strafford, and many others. Adjacent to it was 
a smaller room, called the " Painted Chamber," 
where the private sessions of the court were held, 
and whither they retired for consultation. 

On the 8th of January, fifty-three of the com- 
missioners met, and ordered a herald to proclaim 
the next day the opening of the court, and to 
invite all who had aught against Charles Stuart, 
King of England, to appear and present it. This 
was accordingly done, the officer, surrounded by 
mounted soldiers, riding into the midst of the 
great hall, and delivering his message, attended 
by the sounding of trumpets and beating of 
drums. The same ceremony was observed at the 
old Exchange, and in Cheapside. 

It was nearly two weeks, however, before the 
trial proper began. All the intervening time was 
occupied in settling the preliminaries, such as 
choosing a president and officers of the court, 
determining the form of the complaint and the 



101 



manner of its presentation, appointing the place 
where the king should lodge during the trial, the 
bed-chamber where he should sleep, the attendants 
he should have, the guards for his safe keeping, the 
passages by which he should come from his lodgings 
to the hall, the fitting up of the hall for the trial, 
the appointment of guards and servants of the court, 
the lodgings to be occupied by the Lord President, 
the dress or u habits " of the officers, etc. It was 
voted that if the prisoner should " in language or 
carriage before the court be insolent, outrageous, 
or contemptuous, it should be left to the Lord 
President to reprehend him therefor, and admon- 
ish him of his duty, but as to his putting off his 
hat, the court will not insist upon it for this day." 

Another curious item of the proceedings, which 
sounds as if specially significant, was recorded 
thus : — 

" Ordered, that all back doors from the house 
called Hell be stopt up during the king's tryal." 

Finally, on Saturday, January 20, they got ready 
to begin the trial. The members of the court, 
preceded by the Lord President and his assistants, 
marched in solemn order into the hall, escorted by 
their officers, and "twenty gentlemen with par- 



102 THE THREE JUDGES. 

tisans * and a sword and mace," — symbols of au-, 
thority. The Lord President took his seat in a 
crimson velvet chair, with a desk supporting a 
crimson velvet cushion b.efore him, his two assist- 
ants on either side, the clerks at a table some- 
what lower, and "covered with a Turkey carpet," 
and the rest of the members on benches hung 
with scarlet. On the wall behind, the escutcheon 
of the commonwealth, which had just been pro- 
claimed, was displayed, on the right and left of 
which sat Oliver Cromwell and Henry Martin, 
as supporters. All the members wore their hats, 
as is customary in the sessions of parliament. 2 

Silence was three times cried, after which the 
act of Commons constituting the court was read, 
and the roll of the members called, each one 
rising as he answered to his name. Then the 
sergeant-at-arms was ordered to bring in the pris- 
oner. He came attended by Colonel Hacker, and 
thirty-two officers with partisans as a guard, and 
his servants following. 

" Being thus brought up in the face of the 
court, the sergeant-at-arms with his -mace receives 

1 Lances with a sort of ax near the point. 

2 See the Frontispiece. 




Charles I. before the Court. Pasre io- 



THE KING'S TRIAL AND EXECUTION. IO3 

him, and conducts him straight to the bar, having 
a crimson velvet chair set before him. After a 
stern looking upon the court and the people 
in the galleries on each side of him, he places 
himself in the chair, not at all moving his hat, 
or otherwise showing the least respect to the 
court ; but presently riseth up again, and turns 
about, looking downwards upon the guards placed 
on the left side, and on the multitude of spectators 
on the right side of the said great hall ; the guard 
that attended him, in the mean time, dividing them- 
selves on each side of the court, and his own 
servants, following him to the bar, stand on the 
left hand of the prisoner." 

The Lord President then addressed him, stating 
that the Commons of England, in view of the evils 
which had been brought upon the nation, and the 
blood which had been spilled, had . resolved to 
bring him to trial as the principal author thereof, 
and had accordingly constituted this court, before 
whom he was now to hear his charge. This was 
read by one of the solicitors, reciting the alleged 
offenses, and concluding with, " And the said John 
Cooke— doth for the said treasons and crimes, on 
the behalf of the said people of England, impeach 



104 THE THREE JUDGES. 

the said Charles Stuart, as a tyrant, traitor, 
murderer, and a public and implacable enemy to 
the commonwealth of England, and pray that the 
said Charles Stuart, King of England, may be 
put to answer all and every the premises, and that 
such proceedings, examinations, trials, sentences, 
and judgments, may be thereupon had, as shall be 
agreeable to justice." 

During these proceedings, the king looked about 
sternly, and when the words " tyrant, traitor, and 
murderer " were spoken, he laughed derisively in 
the face of the court. Being required to answer, 
pleading guilty or not guilty, he refused, and asked 
by what authority he had been brought thither ; 
i. e., lawful authority, for there were many unlawful 
authorities in the world, such as robbing, purse- 
stealing, and the like. As to usurping the liberties 
of the people, he said that he cared more for them 
than any of the judges sitting there. The pres- 
sident replied, stating again the authority of the 
court, and requiring him to plead to the charges ; 
but the court adjourned without proceeding fur- 
ther, till Monday 22d. 

While the counsel was reading the charge, the 
king reached forth his silver-headed staff, and laid 



THE KINGS TRIAL AND EXECUTION. 105 

it gently on the counsel's shoulder, saying, " Hold ;" 
but the president ordered him to go on. Just then 
the silver head dropped off, which was regarded as 
a bad omen. • No one picking it up, he was obliged 
to stoop for it himself. 

On Monday, the proceedings were resumed, the 
king being required to answer the complaint, but 
still refusing, and demanding to know what au- 
thority the court had to try him. A long and 
not very dignified colloquy followed between his 
Majesty and the presiding officer, at the close 
of which it was ordered that his refusal to plead 
should be recorded as a contempt of the court, 
and the session was adjourned. Next day the pro- 
ceedings were nearly the same ; the king refusing 
to plead, and frequently launching forth into justi- 
fications of his conduct, and recriminations against 
his opponents. 

On Wednesday, the court resolved to go on with- 
out his answer, and a large number of witnesses 
were examined as to the acts of the king, most of 
whom testified to their having seen him with his 
army in the various battles fought in the last few 
years, and so directly engaged in the alleged crime 
of making war upon his people. At the close of 



106 THE THREE JUDGES. 

the hearing on Thursday, the court, in secret 
session, voted that the prisoner was guilty, and 
that they would proceed to his condemnation and 
sentence. Friday was taken up in preparing the 
form of the sentence ; and on Saturday the 
prisoner was brought to the bar to hear it 
pronounced. 

When informed that the court had made its de- 
cision, and asked what he had to say before 
sentence was given, there followed another dis- 
pute very similar to those of the preceding days ; 
the king denying their jurisdiction, and warning 
them of the sin they were about to commit, and 
the president reproaching him for refusing to 
plead, and hindering the course of the trial. At 
last he was obliged to be silent, and the formal 
sentence was read. It recapitulated at great length 
his Majesty's unlawful acts, oppressing and plun- 
dering the nation, and at last making war upon it ; 
and concluded, " For all which treasons and crimes, 
this court doth adjudge that he, the said Charles 
Stuart, as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public 
enemy to the good people of this nation, shall be 
//// to death, by the severing of his head from his 
body." The president added, " The sentence now 



THE KING S TRIAL AND EXECUTION. IOJ 

read and published is the act, sentence, judgment, 
and resolution of the whole court." All the 
members thereupon arose and severally assented 
to it. 

The fullest accounts we have of the trial and 
execution of Charles were written by his friends, 
and, as might be expected, they go all lengths in 
exalting the dignified and affecting deportment 
of the king, and the coarseness, insolence, and 
severity of his persecutors and judges. While 
there is some truth in these representations, there 
is also, doubtless, much exaggeration ; and the 
reader will make his own allowance for both. We 
are slow to believe that deliberate insults were 
offered the royal prisoner, such as smoking, 
and even spitting in his face, as he was led 
away from the hall after his condemnation. 
The former of these indecorums was said to be 
habitual. 

" The passage from the king's lodgings to the 
hall was planted thick with souldiers on both sides, 
who, as his Majesty passed through them to and 
from the court, were wont to blow their stinking 
mundungoes in his royal face, without any re- 
proof of their officers, who at that time durst not 



108 THE THREE JUDGES. 

distaste the souldiers, nor appear guilty of any the 
least respects, if they had any, for the king ; of 
which affront the king yet made no complaint, 
though he gave them to understand he was sensible 
of it, by his often putting away the offensive smoak 
with his hand." 

In the evening the king requested leave to see 
his children, which was granted him. Two only 
seem then to have been in England — Elizabeth, 
about thirteen years old, and Henry, aged eight, 
both of whom died young. He asked that Bishop 
Juxon might be permitted to assist him in his pri- 
vate devotions, and administer to him the sacra- 
ment, which was likewise granted. On Sunday 
he was attended by the guard to St. James's, where 
the bishop preached before him from the words, 
"In the day when God shall judge the secrets of 
all men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel." 

On Monday the court met, and prepared the war- 
rant for execution, to which the members affixed 
their names and seals. This memorable document, 
with its signatures in full, was as follows : — 

" Whereas Charles Stuart, King of England, is, 
and standeth convicted, attainted, and condemned 



THE KING'S TRIAL AND EXECUTION. IO9 

of high treason and other crimes, and sentence was 
pronounced against him by this court, to be put to 
death by the severing of his head from his body, of 
which sentence execution yet remaineth to be done ; 
— These are therefore to will and require you to 
see the said sentence executed in the open street 
before Whitehall upon the morrow, being the thir- 
tieth day of this instant month of January, between 
the hours of ten in the morning and five in the af- 
ternoon of the same day, with full effect. And for 
so doing this shall be your sufficient warrant. And 
these are to require all officers and soldiers, and 
other the good people of this nation of England, to 
be assisting unto this service. 

" Given under our hands and seals. 

" To Colonel Francis Hacker, Colonel Huncks, and 
Lieutenant-Colonel P hay re, and to every of 
them. 



John Bradshaw, 
Thomas Grey, 
O. Cromwell, 
Edward Whalley, 
M. Livesey, 
John Okey, 
J. Dauers, 
John Bourchier, 



[L. S.] 



H. Ireton, 
T. Mauleverer, 
Har. Waller, 
John Blackiston, 
John Hutchinson, 
William Goffe, 
Thomas Pride, 
P. Temple, 



[L. S.] 



no 



THE THREE JUDGES. 



T. Harrison, 
J. Hewson, 
Hen. Smyth, 
Per. Pelham, 
Ri. Deane, 
Robert Tichborne, 
H. Edwards, 
Daniel Blagrave, 
Owen Rowe, 
William Purfoy, 
Ad. Scrope, 
James Temple, 
A. Garland, 
Edm. Ludlow, 
Henry Marten, 
Vinct. Potter, 
William Constable, 
Richard Ingoldsby, 
William Cawley, 
John Barkstead, 
Isaac Ewer, 



[L. S.] 



John Dixwell, 
Valentine Wauton, 
Simon Mayne, 
Thomas Horton, 
J. Jones, 
John Penne, 
Gilbert Millington, 
G. Fleetwood, 
J. Alured, 
Robert Lilburne, 
William Say, 
Anthony Stapley, 
Gre. Norton, 
Thomas Challoner, 
Thomas Wogan, 
John Downes, 
Thomas Wayte, 
Thomas Scott, 
John Carew, 
Miles Corbett, 



[L, 



S.] 



The court also passed an order to the officers of 
the Tower to deliver to the sergeant-at-arms " the 
bright execution-ax for the executing of malefac- 
tors." 

On the afternoon of that day Charles's children 
came to take the last farewell of their father. He 
lifted the princess in his arms and kissed her, gave 
her two diamond seals, and prayed for the blessing 



THE KINGS TRIAL AND EXECUTION. Ill 

of God upon her and her brothers. It was a very 
affecting scene. Charles had been a kind father, 
and his children loved him tenderly. . 

On Tuesday, January 30, the king rose very 
early, and with Bishop Juxon spent an hour in 
prayer, and received again the sacrament. He said 
he was prepared to die, and death was not terrible. 
About ten o'clock Colonel Hacker, who had charge 
of the execution, knocked gently at his door, and 
told him they were ready. They marched on foot 
from St. James's palace through the Park to White- 
hall, escorted by a regiment of infantry, with drums 
beating and colors flying. The king walked very 
fast, the spectators preserving a deep silence, save 
an occasional prayer or blessing from some of them. 
The scaffold being not quite ready, he spent the 
time mostly in prayer, refusing any refreshment 
except a glass of wine and a bit of bread. 

At last, on the summons of Colonel Hacker, they 
passed through a window upon the scaffold, which 
was hung with black, with the block and ax lying 
in the middle. He then made a long address, de- 
claring his innocence of the charges laid against 
him, — calling God to witness that he had not be- 
gun the war, but the parliament, in taking the com- 



112 THE THREE JUDGES. 

mand of the militia from him ; that he forgave his 
enemies; and intimating that God had permitted 
him to suffer an unjust sentence because of an un- 
just sentence which he had allowed, — referring to 
the condemnation of the Earl of Strafford. He 
called Dr. Juxon to bear witness that he died a 
Christian according to the Church of England, and 
said that the nation would never prosper till they 
had restored the kingdom to his son, though still, 
with his old ideas of divine right, affirming that 
the people had no business with the government, 
— that belonging to the sovereign alone. 

Turning to Colonel Hacker, he said, " Take care 
that they do not put me to pain ; " and to a gentle- 
man who came near, " Take heed of the ax ; pray 
take heed of the ax ! " To the executioner he said, 
"I shall say but very short prayers, and when'I 
thrust out my hands — " Then he received his 
cap from Bishop Juxon, and having put it on, in- 
quired of the executioner, " Does my hair trouble 
you ? " The latter requested him to put it all under 
his cap, which he did with the aid of the bishop, to 
whom he said, " I have a good cause and a gracious 
God on my side." The bishop replied, " There is 
but one stage more) which, though turbulent and 



THE KINGS TRIAL AND EXECUTION. II3 

troublesome, yet it is a very short one ; you may 
consider that it will soon carry you a very great 
way ; it will carry you from earth to heaven ; and 
there you shall find, to your great joy, the prize you 
hasten to, a crown of glory." The king responded, 
" I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown, 
where no disturbance can be." " You are exchanged 
from a temporal to ah eternal crown ; — a good 
exchange ! " was the bishop's reply. 

Then the king asked the executioner, " Is my 
hair well ? " And taking off his cloak ancLa golden 
locket called " the George" containing a miniature 
portrait of his wife, he gave them to the bishop, 
saying, " Remember." After a few words of further 
caution to the executioner, he laid his neck across 
the block, and stretched forth his hand as the sign, 
when, at a single blow the head was severed from 
the body ! 

So the daring, the solemn deed was done. It 
was an act which startled the whole civilized world. 
Other monarchs had been put to death, some by 
assassination, some in the shock of battle, but 
none before in a manner so august as this ; 
arraigned by the supreme authority of a nation, 
8 



114 '* THE THREE JUDGES. 

tried, pronounced guilty, sentenced, and executed, 
with the grave deliberation and solemn forms of 
a " high court of justice." ■ It was a proceeding 
which filled with horror the believers in kingly 
prerogative, and has ever since been the subject 
of the most passionate reprobation, as, on the 
other hand, it has been as warmly eulogized by 
parties of a different faith. We, perhaps, live at a 
time sufficiently remote, and amid circumstances 
otherwise favoring, to be able to judge with some- 
thing like impartiality and fairness of the whole. 

There can be no doubt, we think, that Charles 
was guilty of the charges laid against him. His 
reign was filled with arbitrary and illegal acts, 
which justified the belief that he meant to over- 
ride all the ancient restrictions of the monarchy, 
and make himself absolute, like the continental 
sovereigns. To Magna Charta, even though 
confirmed by his own solemn assent in the Pe- 
tition -of Right, he paid, apparently, not the slight- 
est regard. The ink of his signature was scarcely 
dry before he proceeded to violate it in the gross- 
est manner. The respectful remonstrances of the 
parliament against his illegal acts he treated as 
crimes ; its leaders, however eminent for their 



THE KINGS TRIAL AND EXECUTION. 11$ 

patriotic virtues, he punished as felons. If the 
parliament encroached on his prerogatives by- 
depriving him of the power to dissolve it, and 
of the command of the army, it was in strict self- 
defense ; and when he lifted the standard of war, 
it was that he might put- down all opposition, and, 
as his nephew, Prince Rupert, said, " have no more 
law in England, henceforward, but the sword!' 

All this was marked, too, with unblushing per- 
fidy. Often and often did he assure his people 
" on the word of a king " that he would rule 
according to law, and that his subjects should have 
no cause to complain of any wrongs or oppres- 
sions. We have seen how little such protestations 
were worth. At that most critical moment in 
his reign, when he had, after much reluctance, 
ratified in the ancient form the Petition of 
Right, he suppressed the edition of it which was 
being printed for circulation through the kingdom, 
and ordered another to be substituted for it, con- 
taining the evasive answer which parliament had 
refused to accept, as if even now, by so con- 
temptible a trick, he would cheat the nation 
out of their most vital and inalienable franchises. 
Even when negotiating with parliament for settling 



Il6 THE THREE JUDGES. 

their differences, he was secretly carrying on 
schemes to betray, and subdue them. They came 
to feel, at last, that no dependence could be placed 
upon him. To leave him any power was to en- 
danger themselves and all they held dear. 

The indictment, then, which the suffering and 
exasperated subjects of Charles found against him, 
was a true one, and, if true, he deserved dethrone- 
ment and death. For no greater crime can be 
committed than treason against the liberties and 
the life of a nation. The greater the trust reposed 
by them in their sovereign, the higher they have 
elevated him in prerogative and power, the more 
heinous the guilt of betraying them. The very 
exaltation of which James and Charles so con- 
stantly boasted, instead of justifying their tyranny, 
made it the more inexcusable. 

On the other hand, there are considerations which 
should, undoubtedly, weigh something in Charles's 
favor. First, we must remember his bad education. 
His father had taught and practiced all those 
doctrines, as to the divine right of kings, which led 
to his misgovernment, and all the courtiers and 
divines who filled his court confirmed them. 
Then there were many precedents for his arbi- 



THE KINGS TRIAL AND EXECUTION. WJ 

trary acts in the reigns of his predecessors, even 
of the most illustrious and honored of the English 
sovereigns. Still more, we must remember that 
we see the character of his acts in a clearer light 
than he, in that age, did or .could. The rights 
of the people, and the requirements of public 
justice, had been very little considered two hun- 
dred years ago. Religious liberty especially, as 
we understand it, had never been heard of then, 
nay, hardly conceived of by the extremest radicals 
in opinion. Even duplicity and insincerity in a 
king did not seem as bad as in common people. 
They were thought, like some of the arts of mod- 
ern diplomacy, to be necessary in carrying on the 
government ; a part of that " kingcraft " which all 
sovereigns must use, more or less, in managing the 
affairs of state. 

In estimating the character of Charles, therefore, 
we must be careful not to apply to him tests at that 
time unknown. He should be judged by standards 
of his own day, and not exclusively of ours. It 
should be borne in mind, at the same time, that in 
private life he was comparatively irreproachable. He 
indulged in few of the vices that disgraced his father 
or his son. He had the tastes and the manners of 



I IS THE THREE JUDGES. 

a gentleman ; and we can not doubt that he felt, in 
some degree, the truths and responsibilities of reli- 
gion. While, therefore, -we see in him much to 
condemn, we can also discern not a little to excite 
for him our pity and our charity. Let us hope, 
that through the mercy of Christ, upon whose aton- 
ing merits he relied, and which he so affectingly 
commemorated as one of the last acts of his life, 
he did indeed exchange his temporal crown for a 
crown of glory. 

Of the trial and execution of the king, it must 
be confessed that they were illegal. It is true that 
parliament is, in theory, omnipotent ; but the body 
which created the High Court of Justice, and gave 
it its authority, was not the parliament. Not to 
press Charles's own objection, that it took King, 
Lords, and Commons, all three, to make a parlia- 
ment, it is at least obvious that one house could 
not do it. Yet the Lords had unanimously rejected 
the bill for trying the king, and even the portion 
of the Commons that acted, were but 'a minority 
of that body, a large part of the members having, 
by " Pride's purge," been excluded by force. Well, 
then, might the king demand by what lawful 
authority he was brought to trial ; and in strict 



THE JCINGS TRIAL AND EXECUTION. I 19 

legality he had a right to refuse to plead before 
his judges. 

But all this is not saying that the proceedings 
^were not, in the circumstances, justifiable. It is 
an old maxim, " Sains populi snprema lex " — the 
safety of the people is the highest law. If the lib- 
erties of the kingdom were at stake, if the property 
and lives of millions were at the mercy of a tyrant 
whom no law could restrain, no solemn promises 
nor oaths could bind, who at that very moment 
had his emissaries at work to raise, foreign armies 
to helo him put down his parliament, and rule over 
his people in such a manner as he pleased, then 
they had a right to seek self-preservation, even by 
dethroning and putting him to death. This was 
a right'; but it was the right of revolution, not 
of law. It is to be justified, not by reference 
to statute or precedent, but to those eternal prin- 
ciples of justice which are above law, and which 
give to precedent and statute all their force. 

As to the motives and character of the men. 
who carried through this sublime tragedy, — 
regicides, as they are wont to be called, — we 
have as little doubt. They, too, had the faults 
of their times. The arbitrary conduct of the king 



120 THE THREE JUDGES. 

had exasperated them ; some, having in person 
suffered from it, were vindictive. In religious 
matters they were actuated by a lofty enthusiasm, 
which knew little . gentleness or charity. As a 
matter of policy, the execution of the king was, 
we think, a mistake. It made him a martyr ; it 
won for him the sympathies of many who detested 
his crimes ; it alienated the large class of mod- 
erate men, who, while monarchical in principle, 
had joined with the parliament in resisting his 
aggressions ; it prepared the way for that reaction 
which brought back Charles II. Indeed, from 
the moment of the execution, the latter became 
more dangerous to the commonwealth than his 
father had been, or ever could be. 

But, making all proper allowance for these 
things, the so-called regicides were as pure pa- 
triots and sincere Christians as the world ever 
saw. They believed in God, in truth, and in 
justice, and they manifested that belief before 
the world. They were courageous men, fearing 
God, and fearing nothing else. They taught 
lessons of liberty and the rights of men which 
the nation has never forgotten and never will. 
Every mari in England and America is safer 



THE KINGS TRIAL AND EXECUTION. 121 

to-day for the bold deed they did. They suffered, 
those that survived the Restoration, whatever 
vindictive hatred could invent, and the names 
of all have gone down the stream of time laden 
with maledictions ; but the day is coming, nay, 
has already dawned, when their heroic virtues 
will be acknowledged, and their names spoken 
with reverence, by all who love liberty and right- 
eousness. 




5£%<2M? 



CHAPTER V. 




ENGLAND WITHOUT A KING. i 

HAT shall England do without a king ? 
By the theory of the monarchy, the 
king is the impersonation of the nation's 
sovereignty. He is the source of all authority and 
honor ; all appointments proceed from him, all 
commissions run in his name ; he executes the 
laws ; his are the courts, the justices* the sheriffs, 
the army and the navy. Certainly these can not 
be dispensed with. The machinery of government 
itself must go to pieces if there be not some head 
of the state. Who and what shall it be ? 

Not Charles's son : they are resolved upon that. 
On the very day of the execution, Sergeant-at-arms 
Dendy is ordered by the Commons to give notice 
with sound of trumpet that whosoever shall pro- 
claim the Prince of Wales, or any other person, 
king, without consent of parliament, shall suffer 



ENGLAND WITHOUT A KING. 123 

death for high treason. Two weeks later, another 
act of the Commons decreed that " the House 
of Peers in parliament is useless and dangerous, 
and ought to be abolished." 

After much consultation, it was agreed that the 
Executive should consist of a Great Council of 
State of forty-one persons, appointed by parliament ; 
and this was followed shortly after by a decree 
declaring England a "Commonwealth or Free 
State," to be governed by representatives of the 
people assembled in parliament, and that without 
any king, or House of Lords. The President of 
the Council was John Bradshaw, who had presided 
also at the court for the trial of the king ; its Sec- 
retary for foreign correspondence was the illustri- 
ous poet John Milton. 

Then they -took up the settlement of church 
affairs. Presbyterianism was made the established 
religion of the nation, but with a degree of mild- 
ness and toleration of dissent such as had never 
before been heard of in England. It must be 
remembered, to the honor of Cromwell and the 
stern patriots who acted with him, that they came 
nearer to the modern idea of religious liberty than 
any generation who had gone before them. The 



124 



THE THREE JUDGES. 




OLIVERIAN. 



real doctrines of religious lib- 
erty had not then dawned on 
any man's mind ; the laws were 
as intolerant as it was possible 
to make them ; still their op- 
pressive provisions were not en- 
forced with the vigor of the 
preceding reigns, or of those 
that followed. Whoever would 
live quietly, without assailing 
the government, or disturbing the sentiments of 
others, had little reason t'o fear being persecuted 
for his own. And it is not improper to add, that 
in New England, where the Puritan principles 
were carried fully into effect, no man was ever 
punished by law for mere opinion's sake ; if any 
one, Catholic, Churchman, Quaker, or Baptist, 
was so molested, it was because he could not 
be content with the simple enjoyment of his 
opinion, but was guilty of turbulent acts, in de- 
fiance of the authorities, or hostile to the public 
peace. 

So the new government was established, and 
for a few months things went on smoothly. There 
were, however, too many antagonistic elements 



ENGLAND WITHOUT A KING. 125 

in the nation to permit this repose to continue 
long. These elements gathered themselves at 
length into three different conspiracies, which 
endangered the government and caused the 
stream of blood to flow anew. 

The first was in the army itself, among the very 
men who had- been foremost in overthrowing the 
old order of things. Led on by extravagant ex- 
pectations of the speedy coming of Christ, and 
the beginning of the millennial reign on earth, 
they opposed the formation of the new government, 
— of any government, indeed, — and broke out into 
an open mutiny. .. It was in Colonel Whalley's own 
regiment that this alarming event occurred. Crom- 
well hastened among them, and seized fifteen of 
the ringleaders for trial by court-martial, of whom, 
five were condemned to be shot. One only, how- 
ever, was executed. The defection spread among 
other regiments, but it was vigorously dealt with 
by the generals, and finally extinguished with the 
execution of the subaltern officers that had led it, 
and the confinement in the Tower of some of the 
chief propagators of these wild doctrines. 

The second was among the royalists. These, 
of course, were numerous throughout the three 



126 THE THREE JUDGES. 

kingdoms, but they had been so thoroughly sub- 
dued in England that they engaged in no open 
disturbances there. In Ireland they had pro- 
claimed Charles II. king immediately after the 
death of his father, and had gathered a large force 
under the Marquis of Ormond to enforce his claim 
to the throne. With savage barbarity they had 
taken all the towns which had owned the par- 
liament's sway except Dublin and Derry, and had 
devastated the island with burnings, plunderings, 
and massacres. It was time for Cromwell and 
his Ironsides to appear there; and accompanied 
by Ireton, his son-in-law, he landed near Dublin, 
with an army of nine thousand men, on the 15th 
of August, 1649. He entered upon his' task with a 
vigor to which his foes were little accustomed. 
Town after town was recovered. Drogheda and 
Wexford, being summoned to surrender on pain 
of summary punishment, were taken, and every 
man of the garrisons put to the sword. In ten 
months from the. time of his landing the work was- 
complete, only two or three fortresses remaining to 
dispute his authority. Leaving Ireton behind him 
to attend to these, he returned to. London in May, 
and received the thanks of parliament for his 
eminent services. 



ENGLAND WITHOUT A KING. 1 27 

This was a bloody campaign ; the Irish peas- 
antry call it, to this day, the " curse of Cromwell." 
Its severity, if justifiable at all, can be excused 
only on Cromwell's own plea. " I believe," said 
he, " that this bitterness will save much effusion 
of blood, through the goodness of God." " Ter- 
rible surgery," exclaims Carlyle, " but Oliver Crom- 
well did not believe in the rose-water plan of sur- 
gery, which, in fact, is this editor's case too." 

The third and most formidable of these conspira- 
cies was in Scotland. The ultra Presbyterian party, 
clinging to the same insane belief they had enter- 
tained respecting his father, imagined that the 
young Charles could be induced to subscribe to 
the Covenant, and reign as a Presbyterian king. 
The Scottish parliament, therefore, proclaimed him 
as their sovereign, and invited him to come to 
Edinburgh, denouncing at the same time the Eng- 
lish Commons as regicides and traitors. Charles 
accepted their invitation, and arrived in Scotland 
in June, just after Cromwell's return from Ireland. 
The latter "was immediately appointed captain-gen- 
eral of all the English armies, and ordered to 
march at once to intercept the Scottish troops be- 
fore they should have time to invade England. 



128 THE. THREE JUDGES. 

The presence of Charles gathered to him a large 
body of men for his support, Presbyterians, Epis- 
copalians, and Papists, all making common cause 
against what they called the English fanatics, so 
that Cromwell's army were outnumbered by them 
more than two to one. 

But numbers availed little against such veterans 
as Cromwell's troops. After a long series of 
marchings and skirmishes around Edinburgh, he 
succeeded in drawing the Scots into a great battle 
at Dunbar, where he inflicted upon them a ter* 
rible defeat. Here it was that Cromwell is said 
to have issued to his soldiers, on the stormy night 
before the battle, the celebrated order to "trust 
in God, and keep their powder dry." His attack 
began at sunrise,, his troops marching to the 
charge at the foot of the Doon Hill, singing the 
one hundred and seventeenth Psalm : — 

" Let God arise, and scattered 
Let all his enemies be ; 
And let all those that do him hate 
Before his presence flee." 

Three thousand slain, ten thousand prisoners, and 
fifteen thousand stand of arms taken, was the 



ENGLAND WITHOUT A KING. 1 29 

report of that fight which the Lord General sent 
to the English parliament the next clay. 

The fall and winter months succeeding were 
spent in besieging Edinburgh, and in endless 
negotiations with the Scottish authorities, all of 
which had no important result. Meanwhile, 
Charles, who had fled to the Highlands, suc- 
ceeded in raising another army, and in July 
suddenly started to invade England. Cromwell 
instantly went in pursuit, and, overtaking him at 
Worcester, routed and destroyed his army. Charles 
himself fled in disguise, and after a series of ro- 
mantic wanderings, managed to reach the coast, 
from whence he embarked for France. He did not 
see England again till he was brought back by 
General Monk. 

And now England enjoyed peace once more, 
save a brief but victorious war with Holland, 
of which we have no occasion here to speak. 
In the next two years, however, the parliament, 
or what remained of it, began to grow jealous 
of Cromwell, whose renown had greatly increased, 
suspecting him of aiming at supreme power. On 
the other hand, it was felt by many of the best 
men in the nation, that the parliament itself had 
9 



130 THE THREE JUDGES. 

sat long enough. It began to be called the Rump, 
in reference to the fact that it was but a remnant 
of the body which had been elected twelve years 
before. ' Some of them had become dissolute in 
morals, "some led away by their speculations into 
impracticable theories ; some, it was believed, were 
in secret sympathy with the Scots, who hated both 
Cromwell and the Independents alike. The 
House itself, some months before, had agreed 
that a dissolution should take" place after three 
years, and the question now arose, as to the com- 
position of the new parliament that was to succeed 
them. It soon became apparent that the members 
were conspiring, not to secure a fair election, 
which should truly represent the will of the 
nation, but one that should perpetuate their own 
power, and give them a majority over Crom- 
well and the army. A bill to that effect was 
under consideration, and on the point of being 
passed, when Cromwell, taking his old regiment 
of Ironsides, under the command of Colonels 
Goffe and White, entered the hall, arrested the 
proceedings, declared that they were no parlia- 
ment, and drove them out of the house. He 
then locked the door, put the key in his pocket, 



ENGLAND WITHOUT A KING. 131 

and returned to his apartments in Whitehall. 
The same day he dissolved the Council of State 
in a similarly peremptory manner. 

Three months later, Cromwell convened a new 
parliament, designated by letters missive from 
himself, " known persons, fearing God, and of 
approved integrity." It was a body respectable 
for ability and character, but without any pretense 
of having been chosen by the people. One of its 
members, a leather merchant of London, was 
named Barbone ; this being nicknamed Barebone 
by the royalists, the parliament itself was called 
" Barebone's Parliament." This assembly continued 
its sessions five months, when, finding the task 
before it too great for its ability, it voluntarily 
restored its powers into the hands of Cromwell 
and dissolved itself. 

Matters had now come into such a shape that 
there could be no legal establishment of a gov- 
ernment. Whatever was done must be without 
precedent or regular authority. The nation was 
passing through the stages of a revolution, and 
any government that might be devised, even were 
it the restoration of the monarchy, would rest 
on essentially the same basis — the right of revolu- 



132 THE THREE JUDGES. 

tion. It was in the exercise of this right that the 
next stage of the drama was reached, which had at 
least this indorsement, that it was acquiesced in by 
the nation, and gave them a peace and security, 
while it lasted, which they had not had for years. 

A " council of officers and other persons of in- 
terest in the nation " was convened, who, after 
" much seeking of God by prayer," devised an 
" Instrument of Government," and appointed 
Oliver Cromwell " Lord Protector of the Com- 
monwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland," to 
be assisted by " a council of godly, able, and dis- 
creet persons," not more than twenty-one in num- 
ber. This was, in fact, making him king under 
another name. Nearly all the powers and dignities 
of the monarchy were conferred upon him, except 
that the office was to be elective, not hereditary. 
Cromwell was conducted into the protectorate with 
the pomp and ceremony of a coronation, and was 
speedily recognized by the continental sovereigns 
as the supreme ruler of England. 

By the " Instrument of Government " it was pro- 
vided that parliament should be called within six 
months, which was accordingly done. It turned 
out that a majority of these, counting all parties, 



ENGLAND WITHOUT A KING. 133 




OLIVER CROMWELL. 

was opposed to the republicans ; so, with suicidal 
folly, instead of attending to the public necessities, 
and enabling the new government to discharge its 
functions, its very first undertaking was to question 
its own constitution, and that of the protectorate 
itself Five months they spent in talking about 
and tinkering this " Instrument," and then the Pro- 
tector, wearied out with their trifling, summoned 
them before him, and told them it was not for the 



134 THE THREE JUDGES. 

profit of the nation that they should sit longer ; 
that it was a pity they should have wasted such an 
opportunity of establishing a good government, 
equally removed from the two extremes of monarchy 
and democracy ; that, as to any useful measure, they 
had done nothing. " I do not know," said he, 
" whether you have been alive or dead. I have not 
once heard from you in all this time, and you know 
it." With this sharp reproof he dissolved the par- 
liament and sent them home. 

Then new conspiracies began to be formed. 
Royalists and Independents — heretofore as inca- 
pable of fusion as oil and water — secretly laid their 
plots to overthrow the " usurper." But he knew 
what they were about, and nipped all their schemes 
in the bud. He divided England and Wales into 
eleven military districts, and placed each under the 
command of a major-general of the army, who was 
to see that the laws were enforced, that seditions 
were suppressed, and the existing government 
obeyed — a work which they very effectively ac- 
complished. Whalley and Goffe were both of them 
among these major-generals. 

A few months after — September, 1656 — Crom- 
well's third parliament was convened, though a con- 



ENGLAND WITHOUT A KING. 135 

siderable number of the members, owing to their 
known disaffection to the existing authority were 
not allowed to take their seats. This body, thus 
" purified," passed the needful money bills, and 
such other laws as the state of public affairs re- 
quired. Nay, it did more ; it voted that the time 
had come to restore a parliament of two houses, 
and that it was its desire " that his Highness would 
be pleased to magnify himself with the title of 
King." 

The truth is, that the nation had got tired of this 
ever-changing, ever-uncertain fashion of govern- 
ment, and were beginning to feel they should never 
have anything stable till the ancient constitution 
should be for substance restored. Against this 
proposal the extreme republicans vehemently pro- 
tested, and some of them even seized their arms to 
resist it by force. But Cromwell, though evidently 
strongly inclined in favor of the offer, was too 
shrewd to accept it. He only assented to the pro- 
posal to restore the Upper House, — though the 
republicans would not let it be called by that name, 
or the House of Peers, but only the " Other House," 
— the members of which were to be nominated by 
the Protector and approved by the Commons. 



I36 THE THREE JUDGES. 

It was an ill-contrived scheme, that could not 
possibly work well. The old nobility, the true 
body of peers, had been almost all of them the 
friends of the king, and would have nothing to do 
with Cromwell or his parliament, who in turn would 
not have had them if they would. A very few 
noblemen and gentlemen of ancient families, and 
the remainder officers of the army, — among them 
Whalley and Goffe, — and other old friends of 
Cromwell, about sixty in all, made up this " Other 
House." But the Commons quarreled with it the 
first day of the session, and so violent was the at- 
tack both upon it and upon the Protector himself, 
that after a session of only fourteen days, the latter 
interposed and peremptorily dismissed them. " I 
do dissolve this parliament," he said ; " and let God 
judge between me and you." 

Seven months more of turbulence and plotting, 
repressed only by the strong arm which had so 
efficiently ruled England for the past nine years, 
and Oliver's work was done. He was taken ill in 
August, a few days after the death of his much 
loved daughter, Mrs. Claypole, and on the 3d of 
September, the anniversary of his great battles of 
Durham and Worcester, he died, at the age of fifty- 



ENGLAND WITHOUT A KING. 1 37 

nine. He was one of the most illustrious rulers 
England ever had, although to this day she refuses 
to recognize him as any other than a usurper and 
regicide. In the series of statues of her sovereigns 
with which the Parliament Houses are adorned, no 
place is allowed to him. His greatness, however, 
is not dependent on monuments of brass or marble. 
The liberties of a kingdom which he and his asso- 
ciates rescued from peril, and transmitted to future 
generations, will be the best memorial of his great 
abilities and his heroic patriotism. 

Oliver's son, Richard Cromwell, succeeded to his 
dignity and title as Lord Protector, but his admin- 
istration was brief. He was an amiable man, of 
fair abilities, but entirely incapable of guiding the 
ship of state over the rough seas it was now 
sailing. 

At first all parties acquiesced in his authority. 
" There is not a dog that wags his tongue," writes 
his' secretary, " so great a calm are we in." But 
the calm did not last long. As soon as parliament 
assembled the dogs began, and speedily the whole 
realm resounded with their barking. The extreme 
republicans and the army officers demanded the 
dissolution of this parliament, and the restoration 



I38 THE THREE JUDGES. 

of the old Rump, and Richard was obliged to yield 
to them. The latter immediately voted to abolish 
protectorate, kingship, and House of Peers alike, 
and wield themselves the supreme power, as they 
had done before Oliver ejected them. 

Richard was apparently very glad to get out of 
the mess, and quietly resigned his office after hav- 
ing held it about eight months. Then, after a little 
while, the Rump and the army quarreled, and both 
sides appealed for aid to General Monk, who com- 
manded the forces in Scotland. Generals Whalley 
and Goffe were among the messengers sent him in 
behalf of the army. Monk heard both sides, prom- 
ised fair to both, and prepared to betray them both. 
He set forth on his march toward London, receiv- 
ing on his way and after his arrival messengers 
from all parties, and among others from Charles 
himself. For some time it was doubtful what his 
decision would be, and it was waited for with 
breathless anxiety, for it was felt that he now was 
to decide the fate of England. 

His first step was to order the restoration of the 
parliament as it was before Pride's Purge and the 
execution of the king, and this speedily filled that 
body with the friends of a monarchy. They made 



ENGLAND WITHOUT A KING. 1 39 

Monk commander-in-chief of the army, declared 
all the proceedings of parliament since their 
exclusion illegal and void, and ordered a new 
parliament, after the ancient constitution, to be 
called. This body voted immediately to re-es- 
tablish the . monarchy, and to call Charles to the 
throne, with the title of Charles II. On the 29th 
of May, it being his birthday, he made his solemn 
entry into London, attended by the members of 
both Houses, and a long retinue of nobles and 
courtiers, while the bells rung, the trumpets 
sounded, and thousands of voices bawled them- 
selves hoarse in their gladness that the revolution 
was past, and England had her king again. 




'^p 



CHAPTER VI 



FATE OF THE REGICIDES. 




O people ever humbled themselves more 
abjectly than England, when she knelt 
at the feet of the second Charles. Even 
!iad his personal character been befitting a Chris- 
tian king, it would have been unaccountable folly 
to receive him to the throne without the slightest 
security against a repetition of the wrongs which 
had driven the nation to madness, and plunged 
it into an ocean of tears and blood. But his 
character was not one to be at all proud of. 

" The justice of England," says Palfrey, " has 
provided the workhouse and the tread-mill for 
persons of habits and tastes like his, whom sad 
necessity raised to be the head of her church, the 
master of her sages, the pattern of her gentlemen, 
the object of reverential loyalty to her divines and 
her magistrates, to her teachers and her youth. 



FATE OF THE REGICIDES. 141 

With no honest purpose to' direct his life, utterly 
without sense of responsibility for the right fulfill- 
ment of a vast trust, surrendered, with all his facul- 
ties, to a libertinism gross and shameless, uncon- 
scious even of dishonor in taking bribes from abroad 
for the supply of his vices, an infidel in his hours of 
wantonness, and a Romanist in the pensive hours 
which followed some extraordinary debauch, — such 
was the prince with whom sober, religious, Protes- 
tant England was to renew her experience of 
monarchy." 

If this be thought a harsh judgment of modern 
times, let it be compared with that of Lord Onslow, 
speaker of the House of Commons in 1728. 
" Charles," said he, " had neither conscience, 
religion, honor, or justice, and he does not seem 
to have had even the feeling of them. He had 
no one truly public aim as such, during the whole 
course of his reign. All he meant and sought, 
for which he trembled and tossed from side to side, 
from one minister to another, and for which he 
was continually cheating his people, was to enjoy 
a lazy, thoughtless ease, in the constant debauch- 
ery of amours, and in the pleasures of wit and 
laughter with the most worthless, vicious, and aban- 



142 THE THREE JUDGES. 

doned set of men that even that age afforded, 
and who often, made him the. subject of their jokes 
and mirth, sometimes to his face. 1 He was cor- 
rupted in France, and had all the pleasantry and 
vices of his grandfather, Henry IV., but not 
one of his virtues. Charles made the times here 
to be profligate, and, instead of ministers spoiling 
him, he spoiled most of his ministers, and did not 
love those whom he could not spoil." 2 

Such was the man over whose return the three 
kingdoms went crazy with joy. Court, parliament, 
and clergy vied with each other in heaping adula- 
tions on this " son of the blessed martyr." The 
speaker of the House of Commons told him that 
he was deservedly the " king of hearts," and 
" would receive from his people a crown of hearts." 
Large sums of money were voted to him ; rewards 
were bestowed on those who had assisted in his 
restoration, among whom General Monk was made 

1 One of those jests by his favorite, Buckingham, was a 
burlesque epitaph pronounced upon him in his presence. 

"Here lies our sovereign lord, the king, 
Whose word no man relies on, 
Who never said a foolish thing, 
And never did a wise one." 

2 Vaughan's Rev. in Eng. Hist., vol. iii. p. 448. 



FATE OF THE REGICIDES. 143 

Duke of Albemarle ; and then arose the question, 
What shall be done with the late rebels and regi- 
cides f 

To do him justice, it must be said, that Charles 
was not vindictive in disposition. He loved ease 
and pleasure, and so long as he could have these, 
he cared little for anything else, either past or 
future. But with many of his party it was far 
otherwise. The bishops and House of Lords could 
not forget how summarily they had been expelled 
from parliament, and many of the Commons had 
similar indignities to remember, and many private 
grudges against their former colleagues. To this 
was added the fiercest religious intolerance, inten- 
sifying their animosities, and inflaming their hearts 
with a thirst for revenge. 

Before his arrival in England, while negotiating 
the conditions of his restoration, Charles had sent 
a letter to the House of Commons, full of the 
most magnanimous promises toward those en- 
gaged in the late revolution. He guaranteed 
liberty of conscience to all men, and an uncondi- 
tional pardon, save to those only who should be 
expressly excepted by parliament themselves. 
Even now he was far more lenient than they. 



144 THE THREE JUDGES. 

Of the judges- who had sat on the king's trial and 
signed the warrant for his execution, twenty-four 
were now dead, and sixteen had fled from the 
country. The remaining nineteen, with the law- 
yers, executioners, etc., twenty-nine in all, were 
excepted from the promised indemnity, and sen- 
tenced to death. A few of these were reprieved 
by the king, some were kept in prison, and ten 
ordered to immediate execution. 

The proceedings of the trial and execution were 
attended with the greatest barbarities. All the 
horrors of the dark ages with which it had been 
customary to invest punishments for treason, 
and which in the days of the Commonwealth 
had been laid aside, were now revived. When 
that eminent Christian soldier, General Harrison, 
an ancestor of our own President Harrison, was 
on trial, the executioner, in a coarse dress, with 
a halter in his hand, was set by his side. But the 
brave man knew no fear ; he pleaded his cause 
with a dignity and force which commanded the 
respect even of those who were thirsting for 
his blood. 

All the accused maintained a like heroic bearing. 
They affirmed that they had acted with pure mo- 




Jdthcajettfomat worke haXhpay&e them- their rvagt 




Execution of the Regicides. Page 145. 



FATE OF THE REGICIDES. 145 

tives, and in obedience to the laws ; some, that, 
being soldiers, they were required on pain of death 
to execute the commands of their officers, or of the 
parliament, which was then recognized, both at 
home and abroad, as the supreme authority of 
the nation. But, of course, all was. without avail. 
They were declared guilty, and the bloody sentence 
pronounced. 

Harrison was the first to suffer. He was drawn 
on a hurdle — a sort of rude sledge or drag — to 
Charing Cross, in sight of Whitehall, where the 
king had been beheaded. On his way a voice 
cried out in derision, " Where is your good old 
cause now ? " " Here it is," replied the undaunted 
man, placing his hand on his breast, " and I am 
going to seal it with my blood." On reaching the 
gallows, he was hanged by the neck, but cut down 
alive ; next, he was cut open, his bowels torn out 
and thrown into the fire ; then his body was 
chopped into four quarters, and his still palpitating 
heart held up to the view of the crowd. The pic- 
ture opposite is copied from an original wood cut 
of the time, delineating this barbarous execution. 

Two days later, John Carew, another of the 
judges, suffered in the same manner ; and on the 
10 



I46 THE THREE JUDGES. 

next, John Coke, one of the lawyers, and Hugh 
Peters, one of the preachers of London. In the 
hurdle which carried Coke, the ghastly head of 
Harrison was placed with uncovered face ; but the 
gallant attorney was only stimulated by it to fresh 
courage. And so on, day after day, the bloody 
scene was enacted, until the people were thoroughly 
disgusted, and the king was advised not to proceed 
further, or to remove the spectacle to some other 
place. 

One of the foremost among the republicans, 
Henry Martin, escaped execution, it is said, in con- 
sequence of his wit. He pleaded that he had acted 
by direction of the House of Commons. " Per- 
haps," said he, "your lordships think it was not a 
House of Commons, but it was all the parliament 
there was, and was acknowledged to be the 
supreme authority in England. I have heard 
that where there is a house, and lands pertaining 
to it, if the house be burned or pulled down so 
that only one small stick remaineth, the law still 
attaches the' land to that small stick!' He was, 
however, condemned with the rest ; but he had 
some friends among the royalists, and these advised 
him to supplicate parliament for his life. He said, 



FATE OF THE REGICIDES. 1 47 

in his petition, that he had surrendered in reliance 
upon the king's proclamation of indemnity, and he 
hoped that " he who had never obeyed any royal 
proclamation before, should not be hanged for 
taking the king's word now." His application was 
successful ; some of the lords interceded for him, 
and the sentence of death was remitted. 

Nor was the resentment of the parliament con- 
tent with thus punishing the living ; it scrupled 
not to disturb the sacred repose of the dead. 
Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, were attainted 
as traitors. "On the 30th of January, the an- 
niversary of the death of Charles I., the solemn 
recesses of Westminster Abbey were invaded by 
a brutal crew, acting by authority of the restored 
king and clergy ; the graves were broken open, 
the coffins of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw 
were put upon hurdles, and dragged to Tyburn ; 
there being pulled out of their coffins, the mol- 
dering bodies were hanged at the several angles 
of that triple tree till sunset, when they were 
taken down and beheaded. Their bodies, or, as the 
court chronicler calls them, ' their lothsome car- 
casses,' were thrown into a deep hole under the 
gallows, their heads set upon poles on the top 
of Westminster Hall. 



I48 THE THREE JUDGES. 

"With the same decent loyalty, the dean and 
chapter of Westminster, acting under his Majesty's 
warrant and their own zeal, afterward exhumed the 
bodies of all who had been buried in the Abbey 
since the beginning of the civil wars, and threw 
them in a heap into a deep pit dug in St. Mar- 
garet's churchyard. Among others, the inoffensive 
remains of Oliver Cromwell's mother and daughter, 
who had been models of female domestic virtue ; 
of Dorislaus, one of the lawyers employed on 
the trial of the late king, who had been basely 
murdered in Holland by the retainers of the 
present king ; of May, the accomplished trans- 
lator of the Pharsalia, and historian of the Long 
Parliament ; of Pym, that great and learned 
champion of English liberty ; and of Blake, the 
renowned and honest-hearted, the first of naval 
heroes, — were torn from the sacred asylum of 
the tomb, and cast like dogs into that vile pit." 1 

Of the subsequent history of those who escaped 
punishment by flight, little is known, except in the 
case of Whalley, Goffe, and Dixwell, who came to 
this country. It is said that one died by his own 
hand in Holland, another fled to Lausanne in 

1 Pictorial Hist, of England, vol. iii. p. 660. 



FATE OF THE REGICIDES. ' 1 49 

Switzerland, where he was assassinated. Their 
purpose was concealment, and probably they were 
glad to escape from the turbulent scenes in which 
they had been engaged, and spend the days of their 
old age in peace. Charles and his courtiers were 
absorbed in their pleasures and ambitions, and 
soon the memories of these exiles passed into 
oblivion. 

The great conflict was now over ; the rebellion 
was extinguished, the monarchy restored. Had 
the struggle, then, been in vain ? Was there 
no gain from all that the nation had done and 
suffered for a third of a century to compensate 
her for the sorrow ? Had the heroic deeds, the 
sacrifices, the tears, and the blood, which those 
years had witnessed, been, like water spilled upon 
the ground, wasted ? 

No ; they had not been wasted. We may 
enumerate a variety of particulars in which there 
have been permanent and most valuable gains to 
the cause of liberty and justice. 

First, it is settled that her monarchy is not 
absolute, but limited and controlled by law. Since 
the day when Charles lost his head, there have 
been no more such preposterous claims of its 



I50 • THE THREE JUDGES. 

boundless authority as used to be so common 
before. If her kings reign, as they allege, " by the 
grace of God," they also reign by the grace of the 
people, and are liable to be called to an account 
by the people for any abuse of their power. It was 
not thirty years after the restoration .of the 
Stuarts before the nation repeated the exper- 
iment, and expelled them again, and for ever, 
from the throne they desecrated. They did not, 
indeed, take off the head of James II., but they 
took off his crown, and they will do the same 
thing again whenever a sufficient occasion arises. 

It is settled, too, that there can be no govern- 
ment in England without a parliament. While 
the sovereign has the power to prorogue or dis- 
solve that body for sufficient reasons, it is one 
which has to be exercised with caution, and its 
re-assembling is provided for by law. And while, 
as in ancient times, parliament consists of two 
houses, the Lords and the Commons, the latter 
is by far the most influential of the two. It may 
not, as in Cromwell's time, usurp all the powers 
of the government ; while, on the other hand, 
no measure which it deliberately and persistently 
resolves upon can long be denied. 



FATE OF THE REGICIDES. 151 

The great franchises of English liberty embraced 
in Magna Charta and the Petition of Right have 
been established so firmly that they will never be 
called in question again. They have become the 
inalienable heritage of Englishmen, and of all 
descended from English blood the world over. 
They are the corner-stone of every colonial char- 
ter which acknowledges the British flag. They 
are embodied in our own American Constitution, 
and in the Bill of Rights of each separate state 
in our Union. Under these beneficent enact- 
ments, government, whether monarchical or re- 
publican in form, has become a blessing ; no 
longer an oppressor to be feared and hated, it 
is everywhere recognized as the protector of 
the people, to be loved, respected, and maintained 
at every cost. 

Besides this, the influence of the great civil 
war in stirring men's minds, quickening thought, 
sweeping away old abuses, teaching first prin- 
ciples of government, of true civil and religious 
freedom, of the equality of all men before the 
law, and the like, has been of incalculable value. 
The difference between England as she now is 
and as she was in 1640 is quite as great as 



152 THE THREE JUDGES. 

between England of to-day and Russia or Tur- 
key. The great principles for which the regicides 
contended and suffered have been like leaven, 
pervading all the old despotic systems of Europe. 
Absolutism has been overthrown, or is tottering, 
slavery has been blotted out, punishment for 
opinion's sake abolished. These, and much 
more, are the fruits which have grown out of 
the convulsions of two hundred years ago. They 
are steps in the world's progress toward the 
glory and blessedness, which, through God's favor, 
are to crown the good time coming. 




CHAPTER VII. 



THE JUDGES IN MASSACHUSETTS. 




HALLEY and Goffe did not wait for the 
arrival of the king' before they left Eng- 
land. They knew that they had been 
too conspicuous in the scenes of the last twenty 
years to escape notice, and they had too accurate 
an estimate of the value of Charles's pledge of 
indemnity to trust themselves within his reach. 
They left London on the 4th of May, 1660, 
under the assumed ' names of Richardson and 
Stephenson, and arrived in Boston on the 27th 
of July. 

It must be remembered that there were inti- 
mate ties of friendship, pecuniary interest, reli- 
gious sympathy, and, in many instances, even 
family connection, between the New England 
colonies and the Puritans at home. The plant- 
ing of the colonists was itself a religious under- 



154 THE THREE JUDGES. 

taking, in which many of the leading Puritans 
and commonwealth men, even though they did not 
come in person, were interested. Of those who 
formed .the Massachusetts Company, ten or twelve 
were, or had been, members of the Long Par- 
liament. Among the first patentees of Connec- 
ticut were Hampden, Pym, Fiennes, Lord Say- 
and-Seal, and Lord Brook ; the last two of whom 
are commemorated in the town of Saybrook, which 
was so named in their honor — all these likewise 
members of the same parliament. 

Many leading ministers also were equally known 
in both countries. Hugh Peters, who was one of 
Cromwell's household chaplains, and was barba- 
rously executed with the regicides, had before the 
war been minister in Salem, and his step-daughter 
had married the son of Governor John Winthrop. 
John Davenport, one of the founders of New Ha- 
ven, had been a prominent pastor in London, and 
intimately acquainted with all the leading men of 
his time. William Hooke, whose wife was Colonel 
Wh alley's own sister, had been colleague with 
Davenport for twelve years as teacher of the 
church in New Haven, it being customary, in 
those earliest New England churches, to have 



THE JUDGES IN MASSACHUSETTS. 1 55 

two ministers each, one called the pastor, and 
the other the teacher. Mr. Hooke was recalled 
to England by .Cromwell, and made his private 
chaplain and master of the Savoy Hospital in 
Westminster. At the Restoration he was ejected 
from this office, and lived thereafter in obscurity. 
For many years Goffe's wife and children found 
a home in his family with their aunt. 

It was most natural, therefore, that the regicides 
should choose for a place of refuge these little 
colonies in the wilderness. They would be far 
away from the court and its minions, among 
those who sympathized intensely with the cause 
in which they had been engaged, and to a con- 
siderable extent among old acquaintances and 
friends. They might hope to find here not only 
safety, but the enjoyments of congenial society, 
and in some measure of an English home. 

On arriving in Boston, they called immediately 
on Governor Endicott, who received them very 
courteously, and then proceeded to Cambridge, 
where they intended to reside. As yet it was 
not necessary to conceal themselves. The news 
of the restoration of Charles had not been received 
before their arrival ; indeed, the judges themselves 



I56 THE THREE JUDGES. 

first heard of it after they sailed, and while yet in the 
channel. Still, they probably thought it prudent 
to live in a place somewhat less public than the 
capital. Cambridge was less accessible then than 
now, to be reached only by a ferry across the 
river, or by a circuitous route through Roxbury 
and Brighton. 

The high rank and eminent services for which 
the judges had been distinguished secured for 
them the most respectful regard. Their dignified 
deportment and manners, and their active interest 
in religion, made them welcome in the best society. 
They had brought testimonials of church standing 
from the ministers of London, and were admitted 
to communion in the church at Cambridge, attend- 
ing habitually public worship, as also the stated 
lectures, fasts and thanksgivings, and the more 
private meetings for devotion. Colonel Goffe had 
been somewhat famed as an expounder of Scripture, 
and lay preacher. He was, says one of the old 
histories, " a frequent prayer-maker, preacher, and 
presser for righteousness and freedom, and there- 
fore in high esteem in the army." One of his 
speeches in parliament, on occasion of the victory 
over the Spaniards, advocating an address of 



THE JUDGES IN MASSACHUSETTS. 1 57 

thanks to the Protector Cromwell, was " a lone 
preachment seriously inviting the House to a firm 
and kind of corporal union with his Highness, say- 
ing something as to their hanging about his neck 
like pearls, from a text out of Canticles." * Such 
a gift as this would be highly valued by the reli- 
gious colonists, and there can be no doubt had a 
wide door opened for its exercise. 

That summer must, we think, have passed 
pleasantly with these exiles, though filled with 
many anxieties in behalf of their friends and 
late associates at home. Communications with 
England were infrequent and irregular, and they 
must have waited in much suspense for tidings. 
Roundabout reports by the way of Barbadoes 
stated that all the judges would probably be 
pardoned but seven. This would tend to relieve 
their apprehensions for themselves, and they 
must, with What patience was possible, abide the 
long delay till letters should come. How dif- 
ferent the state of things from the present, when 
the news from all Europe is read here the very 
day it transpires ! 

They visited Boston often, and had frequent 

1 Probably Cant. iv. 4. 



I58 THE THREE JUDGES. 

intercourse with the authorities and persons of dis- 
tinction in the little colony. Small as the town was, 
and rude in its buildings, both public and private, 
there was still much excellent society. The magis- 
trates, the clergy, the rich merchants, and planters 
constituted an aristocracy, which, if not boasting 
as lofty titles as those of the mother-land, could 
at least show equal refinement and moral worth, 
while not a few were members of families of high 
rank at home. 1 Among all these the judges would 

1 The common and honorable appellation of these was 
Mr. — the humbler classes having no prefix to their names, 
or being designated by the simple term "goodman," or 
"goodwife," shortened often into "goody." Thus, among 
the proceedings of the court at Boston, in 1631, is the follow- 
ing record : — 

"It is ordered that Josias Plaistowe shall, for stealeing 
four basketts of corne from the Indians, returne them eight 
basketts againe, be fined five pounds, and hereafter to be 
called by the name of Josias, and not Mr., as formerly hee 
used to be." 

The highest military title then recognized in New England 
was major, while the lower grades of captain, lieutenant, ser- 
geant, and even corporal, were held in such favor, that they 
were placed upon the gravestones as tokens of the honorable 
distinction of the deceased. In 1648, John Hull, a thriving 
Boston merchant, having been chosen corporal, records in his 
diary his devout gratitude to God for giving him "accept- 
ance and favor in the eyes of his people, and, as a fruit there- 
of, advancement above his deserts." 



THE JUDGES IN MASSACHUSETTS. 159 

be received with a cordial welcome and high 
respect. 

There were some royalists, also, who would 
naturally regard them otherwise, and who some- 
times so far forgot themselves as to insult those 
whom they looked upon as murderers of the king. 
In one instance of this kind the offender was ar- 
rested by the magistrates, and placed under bonds 
for his future good behavior. Many other of the 
principal towns of the colony were visited by the 
judges, where they doubtless met a no less cordial 
reception. The loneliness of these infant settle- 
ments made the coming of any respectable visitor 
a matter of unusual interest, and in case of persons 
as eminent as these the event would create an ex- 
citement of no ordinary degree. 

It is not to be supposed that these little towns 
were wholly destitute of amusements. Our fathers 
were austere in manners and morals, but they were 
not without an element of humor in their composi- 
tion, which .could relish a little harmless fun now 
and then. Tradition mentions an incident which 
is said to have happened at this time, which we 
will give in the words of President Stiles, pre- 
mising only that the president does not pretend to 
vouch for the truth of the story. 



160 THE THREE JUDGES. 

" While at Boston, there appeared a gallant per- 
son there, some say a fencing master, who, on a 
stage erected for the purpose, walked for several 
days, challenging and defying any to play with him 
at swords. At length, one of the judges, disguised 
in a rustic dress, and holding in one hand a cheese 
wrapped in a napkin for a shield, with a broom- 
stick, whose mop he had dipped in dirty puddle- 
water as he passed along, mounted the stage. The 
fencing master railed at him for his insolence, .and 
bade him begone. The judge stood his .ground, 
upon which the gladiator made a pass at him with 
his sword to drive him off. A rencounter ensued ; 
the judge received the sword into the cheese, and 
held it tiR he drew the broom over his mouth, and 
gave the gentleman a pair of whiskers. The latter 
made another pass, and plunging his sword a 
second time, it was caught and held in the cheese 
till the broom was drawn over his eyes. At a 
third lunge the sword was caught again, till the 
mop was rubbed gently all over his face. Upon 
this the gentleman let fall or laid aside his small 
sword, and took up the broad-sword, and came at 
him with that ; upon which the judge said, l Stop 
sir ! Hitherto I have only played with you, and not 



THE JUDGES IN MASSACHUSETTS. l6l 

attempted to hurt you ; but if you come at me now 
with the broad-sword, know that I will certainly 
take your life ! ' The firmness and determinate- 
ness with which he spoke struck the gentleman, 
who, desisting, exclaimed, ' Who can you be ? You 
are either Goffe, Whalley, or the devil, for there 
was no other man in England that could beat 
me ! ' And so the disguised judge retired into ob- 
scurity, leaving the spectators to enjoy the diver- 
sion of the scene and the vanquishment of the 
boasting champion. Hence it is proverbial in 
some parts of New England, in speaking of a 
champion at athletic and other exercises, to say 
that none can beat him but Goffe, Whalley, or 
the devil." 

The expected Act of Indemnity, granting pardon, 
with some exceptions, to those who had partic- 
ipated in the late " rebellion," arrived in Boston in 
November. To the great astonishment and grief 
of their friends, it was found that Whalley and 
Goffe were among those exceptions. To the magis- 
trates of the colony it caused both alarm and 
perplexity. For some time matters had been grow- 
ing critical between Massachusetts and the mother 
country. The .enemies of the colony 'had been 
ii 



1 62 THE THREE JUDGES. 

industriously exciting suspicions of her loyalty, and 
if she now afforded an asylum to these regicides, 
these suspicions would be likely to be. strength- 
ened, and bring down upon her the full weight of 
royal displeasure. Some of the magistrates were 
inclined to arrest them at once ; some would defend 
them at all hazards. Nothing, however," was done 
till the 2 1 st of February, when Governor Endicott 
convened the Assistants to advise him what course 
to take. These could not agree, and no conclusion 
was reached. Four days afterward the judges 
themselves removed the embarrassment by volun- 
tarily leaving the colony. 

Nor was this done any too soon. Two or three 
officious royalists had sent word to England that 
the refugees were here, and an order for their 
arrest was momentarily expected. One of these 
was a Captain Breedon, a sort of trading adven- 
turer, ready to turn his hand to anything that 
would pay. His own affidavit shows what the 
colonists thought of him. After stating that he 
told the governor who they were, he says, " who 
answered, without a commission from England 
none should meddle with them. For my service 
herein, I was abused by many, by calling me 



THE JUDGES IN MASSACHUSETTS. 1 63 

' malignant,' and the marshal-general of the coun- 
try, coming to me before several in court-time, used 
these expressions, grinning in my face : ' Speak 
against Whalley and Goffe if you dare, if you dare, 
if you dare ! ' " Another informant was a Colonel 
Crowne, who professed to be a member of Har- 
vard University. " Having acquaintance," he says, 
" with many of that university, he inquired of them 
how Whalley and Goffe were received, and that it 
was reported to him by all persons that they were 
in great esteem for their parts ; that they held 
meetings in their house, where they preached and 
prayed, and gained universal applause and admira- 
tion, and were looked upon as men dropped down 
from heaven ; that this was the phrase of all the 
deponent heard discourse about them ; but that 
penitence for the horrid murder for which they fled 
did not appear to be any part of that piety which 
sainted them in their esteem, for that Whalley said 
openly, almost in all places where he came, that 
if what he had done against the king were to be 
done, he would do it again ; and that it was the 
general report of the place that he was frequently 
heard to say these words." 

Shortly after the judges had left, the royal 



164 THE THREE JUDGES. 

proclamation, or, as they call it, " a hue and cry," 
was received by the way of Barbadoes, denouncing 
them as traitors and murderers, and commanding 
whoever met them to deliver them up to be sent to 
England for punishment. Governor Endicott, on 
the 8th of March, called another meeting of the 
council, and with their assent issued a warrant for 
their arrest. This was sent through the colony as 
far as Springfield, and other towns in the west; 
but as the judges had left that jurisdiction, they 
were, of course, not found. Doubtless some of the 
council at least knew of that fact, and the search 
was intended for appearance* sake rather than 
actually to secure them. 

It is due to truth to remark here, that probably 
the Massachusetts colony had not generally ap- 
proved of the act for which the persons of these 
refugees were now endangered. Sir Henry Vane, 
the younger, a member of the Long Parliament, 
who had been one of the founders and first 
governors of the colony, though a thorough re- 
publican in sentiment, had opposed the death of 
the king, and broken friendship with Cromwell on 
his assumption of the protectorate. The influence 
of his opinions must have been felt here. The 



THE JUDGES IN MASSACHUSETTS. 1 65 

colonial government had carefully abstained from 
any expression in favor of the execution, or any 
formal recognition of the authority of Cromwell or 
of his son. 

While, therefore, the regicides were treated with 
respect in Massachusetts on personal grounds, 
there was not, as afterward in New Haven, the 
warmth of feeling which grew out of sympathy 
with their cause, and was ready to brave any 
dangers in their behalf. Governor Hutchinson in 
his History says, expressly, " Many of the principal 
persons in the colpny greatly esteemed these per- 
sons for their professions of piety, and their grave 
deportment, who did not approve of their political 
conduct. Mr. Mitchell, the minister of Cambridge, 
who showed them great friendship after their ar- 
rival, says, in a manuscript which he wrote in his 
own vindication, ' Since I have had opportunity, by 
reading and discourse, to look a little into that 
action for which these men suffer, I could never 
see that it was justifiable.' After they were de- 
clared traitors, they certainly would have been sent 
to England, if they could have been taken." 

These remarks, as we shall presently see, though 
true of Massachusetts, were not applicable to New 



1 66 



THE THREE JUDGES. 



Haven. It was in consequence, doubtless, of such 
a state of sentiment among the authorities and 
leading men of the former, and of assurances from 
Mr. Davenport and others of a more cordial feeling 
in the latter colony, that the judges determined to 
remove thither. 




CHAPTER VIII 



FLIGHT TO NEW HAVEN, 




CCOMPANIED by an escort of their 
friends, the imperiled judges set forth, 
as privately as possible, on Tuesday the 
26th of February, 1661, on their journey to New 
Haven. It was a tedious ride in the depth of 
winter, along what, for a good part of the way, 
could have been little more than a bridle path 
through the primitive forest. 

They reached Hartford probably on Saturday, 
and stopped there to rest, and pay their respects 
to Mr. Winthrop, the governor. The two original 
colonies of Connecticut and New Haven had not 
then been united, and each had its separate juris- 
diction and its own officers. Governor Winthrop 
was a gentleman of great excellence and dignity, 
a son of John Winthrop, the first governor of 
Massachusetts. He received his distinguished 



1 68 THE THREE JUDGES. 

visitors with kindness, and after three or four 
days' stay in the town, during which they enjoyed 
the society of some of the chief citizens, they set 
forth again, with a guide named Lobden, for the 
remaining stage of their journey. 

Mr. Davenport was just then preaching a long 
series of sermons, designed to strengthen and 
comfort his people in the perilous times through 
which both the mother country and the colonies 
were passing. The text was in Lam. iii. 24, and 
the subject the duty and safety of trusting in 
God. The series was afterward published under 
the title of " The Saints' Anchor-hold." 

On the Sabbath before the expected arrival of 
the judges, he made, in his discourse, a very 
pointed and daring allusion to that event, and 
the duty of the people in reference to it. " With- 
hold not," said he, " countenance, entertainment, 
and protection from the people of God, — whom 
men may call fools and fanatics, — if any such 
come to you from other countries, as from France 
or England, or any other place. Be not forgetful 
to entertain strangers. Remember those that are 
in bonds, as bound with them. The Lord required 
this of Moab, saying, ' Make thy shadow as the 



FLIGHT TO NEW HAVEN. - '. 1 69 

night in the midst of the noonday ; hide the 
outcasts ; bewray not ' him that wandereth. Let 
mine outcasts dwell with thee, Moab ; be thou 
a covert to them from the face of the spoiler.' 
Is it objected — 'But so I may expose myself to 
be spoiled or troubled ' ? He therefore, to remove 
this objection, addeth, ' For the extortioner is at 
an end, the spoiler ceaseth, the oppressors are* 
consumed out of the land.' While we are attend- 
ing to our duty in owning and harboring Christ's 
witnesses, God will be providing for their and our 
safety, by destroying those that would destroy his 
people.-" * 

Such injunctions from the lips of their venerated 
pastor, addressed to those in fullest sympathy with 
his patriotic spirit, could not fail of receiving a 
very hearty compliance. No New Haven man 
betrayed the secret, which, for many months, was 
hidden among them, although not a few must have 
been privy to it. 

The judges arrived on the 7th of March, and 
took up their abode at Mr. Davenport's house. For 
two or three weeks they enjoyed the intercourse 
of the authorities and people, with little, if any, 

1 Bacon's Hist. Discourses. 



170 THE THREE JUDGES. 

reserve. They were among friends, and felt them- 
selves measurably secure. 

The homage which would naturally be inspired 
by the great deeds they had performed and the 
exalted stations they had filled, was bestowed. 
" They found themselves among congenial spirits, 
and went fearlessly from house to house, and dis- 
coursed freely of the thrilling incidents that had 
been crowded into their lives, and could be re- 
produced at will, divested of their more forbidding 
outlines, as the painter can choose the colors that 
best represent to his eye the image that floats, soul- 
like, in the atmosphere of his mental vision. The 
sieges of strong castles ; the busy scenes and 
earnest fears that lent their haggard expression to 
the fires that lit up the camp of civil war ; the 
awful details of the battle of Dunbar, that seem 
still to speak in the tides of the German Ocean, as 
they dash against the rocky coast ; the imprison- 
ment of Charles I. at Hampton Court ; his escape 
from the hands of Whalley ; his subsequent cap- 
tivity ; his uncompromising silence when brought 
to trial by his subjects ; his heroic death ; the 
stern and vigorous policy that followed that event ; 
in short, all the doublings and windings of a self- 



FLIGHT TO "NEW HAVEN. 171 

deluding ambition, exemplified in the life of Crom- 
well, from the humble pleasures of agriculture to 
the magnificent funeral in Westminster Abbey, 
afforded them an inexhaustible theme for conver- 
sation and reflection. They were grave, sedate 
men, and bore themselves with a noble self-control 
and a manly cheerfulness, that bespoke no secret 
upbraidings of conscience. It does not appear 
that they ever felt any such accusations," or enter- 
tained a doubt as to the part that they had taken 
in the transactions that preceded or followed the 
king's death." 1 

On the 27th, the news of the king's proclamation 
arrived at New Haven ; whereupon they made a 
formal and public departure, as if intending to go 
to Manhadoes, now New York. They went on 
that day as far as Milford, ten miles, taking care to 
show themselves there openly ; but the next night 
they secretly returned to New Haven, and re- 
mained in close concealment at Mr. Davenport's. 

By this time the affidavits of Breedon and 
Crowne had produced their effect. A peremptory 
order was received by Governor Endicott to arrest 
and send the fugitives to England, but it was 
drawn up in such a bungling way, as to admit 
1 Hollister's Hist, of Conn., vol. i. p. 237. 



172 THE THREE JUDGES. 

of a doubt as to what was its real legal force. It 
was as follows : — 

"To our trusty and well-beloved, the present Gov- 
ernor or other magistrate or magistrates of our 
plantation of New England. 

" Charles, R. 

" Trusty and well-beloved, wee greete you well. 
Wee being given to understand that Colonell 
Whalley and Colonell Goffe, who stand here con- 
victed for the execrable murther of our Royall 
Father of glorious memory, are lately arrived in 
New England, where they hope to shroud them- 
selves securely from our laws ; our will and pleas- 
ure is, and we do hereby expressly require and 
command you forthwith, upon the receipt of these 
our letters, to cause both the said persons to be 
apprehended, and with the first opportunity sent 
over hither under a strict care, to receive accord- 
ing to their demerits. Wee are confident of your 
readiness and diligence to perform your duty ; 
and so bid you farewell. 

" Given at our Court at Whitehall, the 5th of 
March, 1 660-1. 

" By his Majesty's command, 

"Edw. Nicholas." 



FLIGHT TO NEW HAVEN. 1 73 

Now, there was no chartered colony named 
" New England," and by strict construction it 
might be questioned whether Governor Endicott, 
to whom it was sent, had a. right to enforce this 
warrant, even in Massachusetts. Certain it was 
that he had no jurisdiction outside of that colony, 
and it might well, be claimed that none of the 
other governors could legally construe it as ad- 
dressed to them. 

But Endicott waved the informality, and, with- 
out advising anew with his council, issued his 
warrant to two young royalists recently come 
from England for purposes of trade, named 
Kellond and Kirk, to search throughout Massachu- 
setts, ancl gave them letters of introduction also 
to the governors of the other colonies. He did 
not escape censure, however, for so doing, as 
having taken too much on himself. " Many," 
says Hull, " very honestly minded of the deputies, 
and -some among the magistrates, could not con- ' 
sent to own the governor's acting without the 
council, in executing the king's warrant for ap- 
prehending Colonels Whalley and Goffe. Though 
they own it a duty to be done, yet his acting 
without the major part of the council assembled 



174 • ' THE THREE JUDGES. 

made them loth to own the act at all." But he, 
knowing that the fugitives had gone, probably 
thought that they would be little endangered by 
it, while the occasion was too important, and the 
state of the colony too critical, to permit of any 
seeming delinquency in his -duty to his Majesty. 

Messrs. Kellon'd and Kirk set forth immediately 
upon their errand, and prosecuted it with all the 
zeal that the prospect of an ample reward for 
such distinguished service could inspire. But 
while they were everywhere courteously received, 
and were favored with fair promises of aid, they 
were constantly baffled in their endeavors. The 
report which they made to Governor Endicott, on 
their return, can scarcely be read without a smile, 
as they narrate how hard they found it for stran- 
gers to execute an odious commission among an ' 
unwilling people. 

They left Boston just at sunset on Monday, the 6th 
of May, and arrived in Hartford on the ioth, where 
they called on Governor Winthrop. He informed 
them that the persons they sought had passed 
through that place some days before on their way 
to New Haven, but promised that search should 
nevertheless be made for them. The officers 



FLIGHT TO NEW HAVEN. 1 75 

seem to have been charmed with his affability, 
and hastened on in pursuit. Next day they 
reached Guilford, the residence of William Leete, 
deputy governor of the New Haven colony, and 
acting governor, Mr. Newman having died the pre- 
vious year. 

They found him at home, and a number of per- 
sons with him, and delivered to him their papers. 
After glancing at their contents, he began to read 
them aloud, evidently willing that the others pres- 
ent should know the nature of the business in 
hand. But this was just what they did not wish 
to have known, their success depending in no small 
degree upon secrecy and dispatch. Interrupting 
the deputy, they asked, " Would his Honor please 
not read so loud ? It is convenient to be more pri- 
vate in such concernments as this is." He took 
them aside, therefore, to a chamber, where he told 
them " he had not seen the two colonels, not in 
nine weeks." They replied that they had informa- 
tion of their having been seen in the colony in less 
time than that, and asked of him fresh horses, 
with a warrant and aids for arresting them. ^He 
was, however, very slow to conviction, and made 
so many delays, under various pretexts, that their 
patience was well nigh exhausted. 



I76 THE THREE JUDGES. 

Meanwhile, the news of their coming and errand 
had spread through the village, and on their return 
to the inn, while waiting the deputy's answer, 
a person named Scranton came to them in the 
expectation, perhaps, of earning an honest penny 
by playing sneak and tell-tale, and assured the 
commissioners that the colonels were at that very, 
time at . the house of Mr. Davenport in New 
Haven, and "without all question Deputy Leete 
knew as much." He said that Mr. Davenport had 
"put in ten pounds' worth of fresh provisions at one 
time into his house, and that it was imagined it 
was purposely for the entertainment of them." He 
added thaj: Goffe and Whalley had been heard to 
.say, that if they had but two hundred friends who 
would stand by them, they would not care for Old 
or New England ; that this had been said by them 
openly on a training day, at the head of the com- 
pany. By this time others had gathered round 
who confirmed Scranton's story, and stated further 
that Goffe and Whalley had been seen very lately 
between the houses of .Mr. Davenport and Mr. 
William Jones, and it was imagined that one 
lodged at one of these, and the other at the other. 

This information seemed very positive and reli- 



FLIGHT TO NEW HAVEN. 1 77 

able, and the officers hastened back with it to the 
governor's, and demanded an immediate compliance 
with their requisition. He, however, took the 
matter very coolly. They might have their 
horses, he said, but as to a warrant for the 
arrest, he should have to consult Mr. Gilbert, 
one of the magistrates of the colony, living in 
New Haven, before he could grant it ; which, as 
it was now Saturday night, could not' of course 
be done until the Sabbath was over. 

. This was gall and wormwood to the eager pur- 
suers. It was of no use, however, to be angry, 
and they must wait as patiently as they could. 
To be sure, they might hurry on to New Haven 
at once, but they knevy they could do nothing there 
without a warrant, while their coming would surely 
frighten their prey, and give them" time to escape, 
and they themselves might be liable, too, to be 
arrested and imprisoned, or fined, for breaking the 
Sabbath. The strictness of the Puritans in enfor- 
cing regard for the sacred day was well known, and, 
king's commissioners though they were, they could 
not expect, in the circumstances, to escape with 
impunity. There was no alternative, therefore ; 
they must wait where they were. 

12 



1/8 THE THREE JUDGES. 

But they kept a good lookout, as did their 
tattling friends for them. They soon had in- 
telligence which added to their impatience. Scran- 
ton came and told them "there was an Indian 
of the town wanting ;" doubtless had gone to give 
notice of their coming ! Then they heard that 
" one John* Megges " (or Meigs) was preparing to 
start on horseback on Sunday night, so as to reach 
New Haven in advance of them. • Forthwith they 
rush over to the governor's again, and insist that he 
shall summon Meigs before him, and demand what 
his business is, that requires him to go so early. 
But his Honor replied that he had no authority to 
do that; as a magistrate he could act only" upon 
due complaint and information of some misde- 
meanor, which was not pretended in this case. 
So they had to go back again, and abide these 
Puritan modes of doing things the best way they 
could. 

We fear that they did not keep that Sabbath very, 
devoutly in their enforced .repose. Whether they 
attended divine worship in the little meeting-house 
of the village, they do not say. Unfortunately, just 
then, Guilford was without a minister, Mr. Whit- 
field, their first pastor, who built for himself the 



FLIGHT TO NEW HAVEN. 



1/9 




OLD HOUSE IN GUILFORD. 



famous stone man- 
sion with thick 
walls and narrow 
windows, that it 
might serve both 
for a dwelling- 
house and a fort, -ggggjjjl 
and which is still 
standing, the old- 
est house in the United States, having some 
years before returned to England. Possibly, in 
the absence of a minister, Deputy Leete " ex- 
horted," which from his piety and talents he was 
well qualified to do. 

However that may have been, the officers, had 
they been there, would have seen what should 
profit them. An infant commonwealth founded on 
the teachings of God's word, assembled without 
exception, save the infirm, and the few stalwart 
men set to guard the settlement from treacherous 
savages, for the worship of Him whom they feared 
and loved, and over sanctuary and village resting 
a Sabbath repose, that breathed the peace and 
serenity of heaven, — these the outward evidences 
of a religion deeply implanted in the heart, for 



ISO THE THREE JUDGES. 

the sake of which these colonists had cheerfully 
borne the hardships of exile and the wilderness, 
and would still dare in its defense, and that of their 
friends in the faith, anything that power, however 
despotic, could attempt. Such a spectacle, duly 
considered, would have been an instructive one 
to these zealous young men, and possibly have 
taught them that while loyalty to an earthly sov- 
ereign had its true worth, there was such a thing 
as a higher and nobler loyalty to the King of 
kings. 

Let us see how matters stood in New Haven 
just at this time. As already remarked, the judges 
were for several weeks concealed in Mr. Daven- 
port's house, which stood on the south side of Elm 
Street, between what are now Orange and State 
Streets. On the same street, directly opposite, 
was the residence of Mr. William Jones, formerly 
Governor Eaton's, whose daughter Mr. Jones had 
married. He had come hither from England the year 
before, and, it is said, in the same ship that brought 
Whalley and Gofife. His father was Colonel John 
Jones, a brother-in-law of Cromwell, and one of 
the judges of the king ; and for his prominence 
and ability was one of the ten regicides who 



FLIGHT TO NEW HAVEN. 151 

were selected to be put to death without mercy. 
The news of the bloody execution had arrived 
a few weeks before at New Haven. Everything 
conspired, therefore, to bind in the most intimate 
ties of friendship and of common grief Mr. Jones 
and these fugitives from a like barbarous fate. He 
it was upon whom, under God, were specially de- 
volved the duty and privilege of being their pro- 
tector. His wealth enabled him to do this, and 
his recent arrival in the colony, in consequence 
of which he had not yet been called to official 
service, sheltered him in a measure from suspicion. 
As soon, therefore, as news came of their danger, 
and it was foreseen that their stay at Mr. Daven- 
port's might imperil him, Mr. Jones secretly re- 
moved them to his own house. 

The missing Indian of Guilford, with what was 
telegraphic speed for those days, had made the 
distance thence — sixteen miles — on that Sat- 
urday evening before bed-time. Mr. Jones owned 
a mill some two miles north-west of the town, 
near the outlet of the Beaver -Ponds, where is 
now the manufactory of the Messrs. Blake. 
Thither, on receiving the report of their danger, 
he conducted his guests, where they would be 



1 82 THE THREE JUDGES. 

safe while waiting further developments. Some 
time during the next night Meigs also arrived, 
bringing a letter from Deputy Leete to Mr. Gil- 
bert, the local magistrate of New Haven, advising 
that a search should forthwith be made, as if by 
the self-prompted loyalty of the authorities. 

Unfortunately, Mr. Gilbert was not at home, 
so that the requisite search-warrant could not be 
procured. Hurried consultations, however, were 
had by those in the secret, and it was concluded 
that the judges should show themselves openly 
next morning, and a formal attempt be made to 
capture them before the arrival of the kings 
officers. Of course the former were apprised 
of the scheme, and of the part they were ex- 
pected to play in it. 

Accordingly, on Monday morning, the judges 
came into town, and thence walked out alone on 
the road toward Guilford, well armed with stout 
walking-sticks or cudgels. Thither they were. 
pursued by the town-marshal or sheriff, named 
Kimberly, with orders to apprehend them. On 
being overtaken, the colonels stood on their de- 
fense, and planting themselves against a tree, 
plied their cudgels so skillfully that the officer 



FLIGHT TO NEW HAVEN. I #3 

was baffled, and compelled to go back to the 
town for assistance. 

Just then, tradition says, that, looking across the 
level fields eastward, they espied a party of horse- 
men approaching, whom they might well believe 
to be the royal officers coming from Guilford. 
These would be too formidable a force to meet as 
they had encountered the single marshal. There 
were woods at no great distance, but should they 
attempt to reach these, they would probably be 
discovered. Just before them was the small stream 
called Mill River, flowing through a low salt marsh. 
By descending to this, they would be for a* few 
moments out of sight of the officers, and the 
bridge over the stream promised them conceal- 
ment. • Fortunately, the tide at that hour was at 
the ebb, 1 so that sufficient space was afforded 
between the bridge and the water to allow them 
to crawl in there. Thither they hastened, and in 
this slimy retreat they lay hid while the group 
of horsemen passed over, and went on their way 
into town, entirely unaware how near they had 

1 President Stiles has verified the fact by astronomical 
calculation, that *it was ebb-tide at New Haven at noon, on 
the 13th of May, 1661. 



184 THE THREE JUDGES. 

been to the prey they were seeking. When they 
were gone the refugees emerged from their hiding- 
place, and escaping to the woods, managed at 
length to get safely back to Mr. Jones's. Of 
course, when Marshal Kimberly returned with 
his aids to seize them, they were nowhere to be 
found, and it only remained for him to make due 
return of the attempted arrest and failure. 

Two hours after the. arrival of the pursuers, 
Deputy Governor Leete appeared. He had called 
on his way at Totoket, now Branford, and procured 
the company of Mr. Jasper Crane, another of the 
colonial magistrates, who resided there. After a 
leisurely dinner, and having sent for the other two 
magistrates, Mr. Gilbert- of New Haven, and Mr. 
Robert Treat of Milford, he repaired to the court- 
house and gave audience to the kings messengers. 
Some of^the local deputies, or, in modern phrase, 
justices, had been invited to be present, among 
whom was Mr. John Davenport, Jr., son of the 
pastor. 

The messengers stated their errand and the 
information they had received, and asked their 
assistance for the apprehension of jthe regicides. 
The deputy replied, that he did not believe they 



FLIGHT TO NEW HAVEN. 1 85 

were there. They requested him to empower 
them, or some one else, to search and see ; but 
he told them he had no authority to make them 
magistrates. They rejoined, that they would per- 
sonally venture- upon the search and seizure in 
two certain houses, where they believed the judges 
were hid, if he would give way and permit it ; but 
he refused, and adjourned the sitting for consul- 
tation with his advisers. 

Before leaving, however, the officers, scarcely 
concealing their irritation, warned him of the 
danger of delay, and of the inevitable escape of 
the culprits, and insolently told him that the 
honor and service of his Majesty were despised 
and trampled on by him, and that they supposed, 
by his unwillingness to assist in the apprehension, 
he was willing they should escape. 

Long and anxious were the deliberations that 
followed. Mr. Leete was a lawyer, and must have 
well understood the danger incurred by those who 
harbored or befriended traitors. "The law of 
principal and accessory," says Macaulay, " as re- 
spects high treason, then was, and is to this day, 
in a state disgraceful to English jurisprudence. 
In cases of felony, a distinction, founded on jus- 



1 86 THE THREE JUDGES. 

tice and reason, is made between the principal 
and the accessory after the fact He who conceals 
from justice one whom he knows to be a' murderer, 
though liable to punishment, is not liable to the 
punishment of murder ; but he who shelters one 
whom he knows to be a traitor is, according to all 
our jurists, g?cilty of high tj-eason." l Under this 
barbarous statute the venerable Lady Alice Lisle 
was publicly beheaded, in 1685, for the simple 
offense of giving food and shelter to two persons 
charged with participating in a conspiracy against 
the king, and that, too, before they had been 
convicted. 

It was a serious matter, then, to refuse obedience 
to the king's order. The only possible way of 
evading it, which they could think of, was, to take 
advantage of its technical informality. It was 
addressed, " To the governor or other magistrate 
or magistrates of our plantation of New England." 
But that was not the legal designation of the New 
Haven colony, and although it was obvious enough 
that his Majesty meant it for the governors of all 
the colonies, still, in so grave a matter as this, 
where the question of life and death was involved, 

1 Hist, of Eng., vol. i. p. 503. 



FLIGHT TO NEW HAVEN. 1 87 

it would be dangerous to go behind the letter of 
a precept, and infer intentions. Besides, the lan- 
guage might be understood to imply that there was 
but one governor in New England, and that all the 
other so-called governors and magistrates were 
subject to his direction. If they obeyed the order, 
they might seem to be acknowledging this, and 
be liable to be called to account by the people for 
making a concession dangerous to the indepen- 
dence of the colony. 

Would, these pleas be sufficient to justify them 
in refusing obedience ? Evidently Governor Leete 
thought not. It was comparatively easy for them 
to construct a plausible argument that might 
answer here, but he could not believe it would 
avail them much in London. He took up his pen, 
therefore, and began to write the warrant which 
Kellond and Kirk had demanded. Just then Mr. 
Gilbert, who had been absent from town; and Mr. 
Treat arrived. The discussion was opened anew, 
and finally some one hit on the expedient of re- 
ferring the whole matter to the General Court of the 
colony as one of jurisdiction which they alone 
could safely decide. This was agreed upon, and 
the officers called in to hear the result. 



1 83 THE THREE JUDGES. 

As might have been expected, they were very 
angry. It was true there had been no refusal to 
obey the king's mandate ; on the contrary, both it 
and themselves had been treated with studied 
respect. Nor could they complain that the magis- 
trates were careful to keep within their lawful 
authority. But they were shrewd enough to see 
where, under all this fair seeming, the sympathies of 
these dignitaries were, and gave them an emphatic 
warning of the consequences they might anticipate. 

" We told the deputy," said they, " how ill his 
Sacred Majesty would resent such horrid and 
detestable concealments and abettings of such 
traitors and regicides as they were, and asked 
him whether he would honor and obey the king 
or no in this affair, and set before him the danger 
which by law is incurred by any one that conceals 
or abets traitors. To which the Deputy Leete 
answered, * We honor his Majesty, but we have 
tender consciences.' 

" To which we replied, that we believed he knew 
where they were, and only pretended tenderness 
of conscience for a refusal ; that for their respect 
to two traitors they would do themselves injury, 
and possibly ruin themselves and the whole colony 



FLIGHT TO NEW HAVEN. 1 89 

of New Haven ; and still continuing to press them 
to their duty and loyalty to his Majesty, and 
whether they would own his Majesty or no, it was 
answered, they would first know whether his 
Majesty would own them?" — i. e., respect their 
character, and recognize them as loyal and faithful 
subjects. 

While the governor and magistrates were delib- 
erating in secret session, the royal officers seem to 
have thought they would do a little searching on 
their own authority. Tradition says that they went 
to Mr. Davenport's, where, of course, they did not 
find the fugitives, and next to Mr. Jones's, where 
they had as little success. But they appear to have 
come close upon their track at the house of a Mrs. 
Allerton, which stood a little east of the city in 
what is now Union Street, looking out upon the 
bay. This venerable lady was the second wife of 
Isaac Allerton, one of the Pilgrims of the May- 
flower, who first married Fear Brewster, a daughter 
of Elder William Brewster. 1 Mrs. Allerton, seeing 

1 President Stiles says the lady was a Mrs. Eyers, but 
Dr. Bacon has shown that this is a mistake. Elizabeth 
Allerton, who afterwards married Simon Eyers, was then but 
eight years old. She was a daughter of Mrs. Fear Allerton, 
and now resided with her widowed step-mother. 



190 THE THREE JUDGES. 

the officers coming, sent her guests out of the back 
door ; but after retreating a short, distance, they 
returned and were concealed by her in the house. 
It is said that this contained a large wainscoted 
closet, having a door, which, when shut, could not 
be distinguished from the other woodwork of the 
room, and that all over the door, and on the outside 
of the closet, was hung brassery and elegant kitchen 
furniture, so that no one would think of looking for 
a passage there. 

In this closet they found a safe refuge. When the 
pursuers came in, they asked whether the regicides 
were in her house. She replied that they had been 
there, but had just before gone out at the back 
door, and, by' her very polite and artful address, 
succeeded in putting the officers on a false scent, 
and saving her friends. It was plain, however, 
that it was highly dangerous for the latter to re- 
main in the town a moment longer, and that night 
Mr. Jones conducted them to a lonely farm-house, 
occupied by a man named Sperry, in the woods 
some three miles distant. Even here, it is reported, 
they were tracked by their indefatigable pursuers 
the next day ; but espying their approach, over a 
long causeway to the house, they escaped betimes 
into the surrounding forest. 



FLJGHT TO NEW HAVEN. 191 

Convinced of the hopelessness of their inquest 
here, and without waiting for the General Court, 
which was summoned to meet on the following 
Friday, Messrs. Kellond and Kirk took a hasty 
departure from the colony. Indeed, they had been 
significantly informed that they need not delay their 
own business by tarrying for the action of the au- 
thorities. In due time they reached Manhadoes, 
and were politely received by the Dutch Governor 
Stuyvesant, who promised to notify them if the 
regicides came thither. Thence they returned to 
Boston by sea, and made their report to the gov- 
ernor on the 29th of May. For their services on 
this occasion, they were each presented by the 
Massachusetts Council. with a farm of two hundred 
and fifty acres of land. 





CHAPTER IX. 

« 

THE JUDGES' CAVE. 

BOUT two and one half miles north-west 
of New Haven rises the precipitous bluff 
of West Rock. It is the southern ex- 
tremity of a range of hills coming down from the 
Green Mountains of Vermont, which, here bending 
abruptly to the east, lifts a mural face of trap rock 
fronting the town and harbor of some four hundred 
feet in hight. In consequence of the reddish-brown 
color of the stone, the Dutch gave to the locality, 
when first discovered, the name of " Red Mount." 
A mile or two further east is the similar, though 
somewhat smaller, cliff of East Rock, the two 
standing like 

" Twin giants, guarding sea and land." 

Between these is the beautiful plain upon which 
the city is built, surrounding the harbor opening 



THE JUDGES CAVE. I93 

from Long Island Sound four or five miles distant. 
The plain is embraced in the arms of two small 
streams which wind sluggishly through the salt 
marshes to the sea, called by the Scripture-loving 
colonists Abana and Pharpar, but better known 
at the present day by the names of the West and 
Quinipiac Rivers, the latter being the designation 
of the Indian tribe originally dwelling here. 

A few. hundred yards back from the precipice, 
upon the summit of West Rock, is a huge pile of 
detached rocks, evidently the dislocated fragments 
of a mighty boulder, which in some remote glacial 
period was brought hither by an ice-raft from the 
north. The still higher summits of Mount Carmel 
in Hamden, Mount Lamentation' in Meriden, and 
the more distant Talcott Mountain beyond Farm- 
ington, all plainly visible from the West Rock, sug- 
gest the not improbable source from which this 
ancient boulder was derived. The whole may be 
fifteen or twenty feet in hight by one hundred and ■ 
fifty in circumference. Between the fragments are 
irregular fissures, of sufficient size to admit a man. 
Two of the larger fragments stand apart from each 
other about twelve feet, having a third eight feet 
high in the rear, and inclosing a space which needs 
13 



194 THE THREE JUDGES. 

only to be covered by branches of trees to form a 
commodious apartment. A recess under the fur- 
ther rock would admit of a bed of leaves or straw 
sufficient for two or three persons. The whole is 
popularly called to this day the Cave. 

The farm-house mentioned in the last chapter 
was situated on the low ground at the foot of the 
mountain, about a mile distant from the cave. Di- 
rectly opposite the latter there is a deep cleft in 
the face of the precipice, admitting of easy access 
to it by a steep pass. The entire region herea- 
bouts, except a small clearing around the house, 
was then covered with woods, but is now a succes- 
sion of fields and meadows, bearing still the name, 
derived from its' primitive occupant, of " Sperry's 
Farms." 

The judges, being brought to this farm-house on 
the night of the eventful 13th of May, were con- 
cealed there and in the woods near by for two days, 
until convenient accommodations could be fitted 
up for fhem at the " Cave." These preparations 
were made with the utmost secrecy, so that even 
the members of Mr. Sperry's family were entirely 
ignorant of them. , Three persons only appear to 
have known of this retreat, Mr. Jones, Mr. Sperry, 



THE JUDGES CAVE. 1 95 

and a man named Burrill, who seems to have been 
a fellow-laborer of Sperry's on the farm. Thither 
the judges repaired on the 15th. Their supplies 
were furnished by Mr. Jones, through the medium 
of Sperry, their food being sent to them daily from 
the farm-house. Sometimes the latter carried it 
himself, at others he dispatched it, tied up in a 
cloth, by one of his boys, with orders to lay it on a 
certain stump, and there leave it ; and when the 
boy went at night for the vessels, he always found 
them emptied of their contents, and brought them 
home. The lad wondered at this, and inquired of 
his father what it meant, for he saw nobody. The 
latter told him it was for some persons at work in 
the woods ; nor was it till long afterward that any 
one knew who these " persons " were. 

The judges, ever mindful of the gracious provi- 
dence which had rescued them from immediate 
danger, named the place of their refuge Providence 
Hill. But though thankful for present safety, it 
must have been to them a lonely spot, and their 
hearts must have sunk under the most painful 
reflections. We may imagine them cautiously 
emerging from the cave, and stealing through the 
thicket to the edge of the lofty precipice, whence 



I96 THE THREE JUDGES. 

they might catch glimpses of the town, and of the 
path leading from it, to detect any approach of 
their pursuers in that direction. There, stretched 
out before them in a shining crescent, lay the calm 
waters of the Sound, across which, three thousand 
miles away, was dear old England, the land of home 
and friends, now, alas ! a home no longer. Those 
friends, — some of them had already suffered 
deaths the very reading of which makes one shud- 
der ; some lay in prison, daily expecting to be led 
forth to similar barbarities ; some, like themselves, 
were fugitives and vagabonds through' the earth. 
And there were nearer ones still. Whalley's wife was 
probably dead, but GofFe had a wife and children, 
equally dear to them both, now left to bear the 
odium, perhaps the vengeance, of their enemies for 
what tlicy had done in the sacred cause of freedom 
and religion, and utterly beyond the reach either 
of their help or their sympathy. And last, but not 
least in the estimation of patriots as unselfish as 
they were, was the sad condition of England her- 
self. The good cause for which they had toiled 
and prayed, had imperiled their lives on the field 
of battle, and in the councils of those now declared 
traitors and regicides, apparently lost ; the churches 



THE JUDGES CAVE. I97 

subjected again to spiritual tyranny ; and a profli- 
gate king and court fastened anew on the necks of 
the prostrate nation. Bitter beyond conception 
must have been their thoughts of all this. And 
when at night they retired in the dark to their rude 
couch of straw in the recesses of the rock, we may 
well imagine them to have prayed with strong crying 
and tears to Him whom they served, invoking still 
his mercy for what was so dear, and committing 
themselves with what faith and hope were possible to 
his continued protection. 

Pursuant to the summons, the General Court 
met on the 17th, and the deputy governor laid be- 
fore that body a full statement of what had been 
done. He said that "himself and the magistrates 
told the messengers " — Kellond and Kirk — "that 
they were far from hindering the search, and they 
were sorry that it so fell out," — i. e., we suppose, 
in consequence of Mr. Gilbert's not being at home 
when the letter from Guilford came, — " and were 
resolved to pursue the matter so that an answer 
should be prepared against their return from the 
Dutch." The court, thereupon, " all declared they 
did not know that they " — the judges — " were in 
the colony, or had been for divers weeks past," — 



I98 THE THREE JUDGES. 

their last public appearance having been on the 26th 
of March, when they were seen in Milford, appar- 
ently on their way to Manhadoes, — " and both 
magistrates and deputies wished a search had been 
sooner made ; and did now order that the magis- 
trates take care and send out the warrant, that a 
speedy diligent search be made throughout the 
jurisdiction in pursuance of his Majesty's com- 
mands, according to the letters received ; and that 
from the several plantations a return be made, and 
that it be recorded. And whereas there have been 
rumors of their late being known in New Haven, it 
hath been inquired into, and several persons exam- 
ined, but could find no truth in those reports, and 
for any that doth appear, [they] are unjust suspi- 
cions and groundless reports against the place, to 
raise ill surmises and reproaches." 

It has been alleged that these statements were 
not true — that the good men who made them, 
in their strait between the desire of protecting 
the judges, and fear of the consequences, were 
guilty of insincerity, if not of downright falsehood. 

We think otherwise. The fact undoubtedly is, 
that they intended to render all outward obedience 
to their lawful king. As magistrates they would 



THE JUDGES' CAVE. 1 99 



not secrete the fugitives ; if commanded to order 
a search for them, they would do so. If any in- 
dividuals violated the law, and they had cognizance 
of it by proper information and complaint, they 
would take due notice of it. They would not by 
official neglect have the reputation of the colony 
for loyalty suffer. All this the king might de- 
mand, but no more. He had no right to make 
them spies, or to require of them an extra-official 
zeal. He had no authority over their consciences 
or their sympathies. While they rendered to 
Caesar the things that were Caesar's, they were 
not thereby forbidden to render also to God the 
things that were God's. 

Undoubtedly, also, there was a tacit consent 
throughout the colony that everybody except a 
very few intimate friends should be actually ig- 
norant of the whereabouts of the imperiled men. 
It was a secret which it would be the highest 
service to them not to inquire into, or even to 
talk about. Rarely does history present us a 
more delicate regard for the welfare of strangers, 
a more considerate thoughtfulness for the safety 
of their own ministers and magistrates, or a 
truer heroism in daring any punishment which 



200 THE THREE JUDGES. 

royal vengeance might inflict for their alleged 
contumacy. 

In compliance with the order of the General 
Court a very thorough search for the refugees 
was made in all the towns of the colony, but of 
course without effect. Mr. Jones kept his own 
secret, and Sperry and Burrill, being at work in 
their solitude in the woods, had no occasion to 
participate in, or be even cognizant of, the pro- 
ceedings. 

On the 29th of May, the general election of the 
colony was held, and Mr. Leete was chosen gov- 
ernor, and Mr. Gilbert deputy governor. In view 
of the exigency in public affairs, five magistrates 
were chosen instead of three, the usual number ; 
but two of these refused to accept the office, and 
the third, Mr. Fenn, consented to act only with 
reference to their own home affairs ; " in case any 
business from without should present, he con- 
ceived he should give no offense if he did not 
attend to it." So great was the danger involved 
in holding this office in that emergency that few 
were willing to risk it. 

Matters were now thickening rapidly. The 
action of the General Court, the search, the elec- 



THE JUDGES CAVE. 201 

tion, with the refusal of some of the magistrates 
to serve, made the hazards they were incurring 
vividly apparent. The threats of Messrs. Kellond 
and Kirk were well remembered. They had now 
got back to Boston, and reported how their mission 
had been received in the rebellious colony ; offer- 
ing, also, large rewards to any among the English 
or the Indians who should give information that 
would lead to the capture of the regicides. Espe- 
cially was it felt that Governor Leete, and Deputy- 
Governor Gilbert, with their beloved pastor, Mr. 
Davenport, were in imminent danger. Even 
the firmest began to waver. It had been well 
understood between the judges and their friends, 
that the former would voluntarily surrender them- 
selves whenever it was deemed necessary to save 
the authorities, and it was now reluctantly ac- 
knowledged that the time had come. 

Accordingly, on the nth of June, the judges 
left their cave, and accompanied, doubtless, by Mr. 
Jones, and perhaps others, went over to Guilford 
to deliver themselves to Governor Leete, though 
still apparently not without hopes, at least on the 
part of their friends, that this final step might, 
some how, be avoided. For this reason, apparent- 



202 THE THREE JUDGES. 

ly, the governor thought it best not to see them. 
Near his house, on the bank of the small rivulet 
flowing through that town, he had a store, with 
a basement or cellar underneath it. In this 
cellar the judges were lodged and supplied with 
necessaries from the governor's table, but without 
the knowledge of his family. Here, and at the. 
house of a Mr. Rossiter, in the same village, they 
were concealed more than a week, while their 
friends were in anxious consultation concerning 
them. 

It seems to have been concluded that the final 
step might, for a while, be deferred. " The gov- 
ernor," says President Stiles, " now having demon- 
stration by the actual surrendry of the judges 
that they would at all times stand ready to sur- 
render, and it being agreed that the places of 
their retreat should always be known to him, so 
that they could be given up in case of extremities, 
he felt himself safe, and could agree to postpone 
the actual acceptance of their surrendry to a future 
time, if it should be absolutely necessary." 

It seems to have been agreed, also, that the 
judges should return to New Haven, and show 
themselves openly there, for the purpose of relieving 



THE JUDGES CAVE. 



203 



Mr. Davenport from the charge of continuing to 
conceal them. We know that they were there 
from Saturday, the 22d of June, to the Monday 
following, and are inclined to believe that this open 
appearance was on the Sabbath, in attendance 
upon divine worship. This would combine the 
publicity desired with security from arrest, it 
being morally certain that no writ would be 
issued for that purpose on the Lord's day. As- 
suming this to be fact, let us try to recall the 
scene which that summer Sabbath in the little 
town presented. 

The meeting-house — the first built in New 
Haven — stood on the lower part of the green, a 
little west of where is now the flagstaff. It was 
a rude building, 
"fifty foot square/' 
with a small tur- 
ret on the top. In 
front were three of 
the six " greate 
gunns " belonging 
to the town, the 
other three being 
set to guard the ancient new England church. 




204 THE THREE JUDGES. 

approaches to it on the water-side. Instead of the 
" church-going bell," a drum was twice beaten in 
the turret and along the principal streets before 
the hour of service. As that hour drew nigh, an 
armed soldier stationed himself aloft, and a guard 
with muskets entered, and took their assigned 
seats on each side of the front door. There 
were no galleries or pews, but benches arranged 
in the middle, and along the sides of the house, 
where the people sat, the males on one side, the 
females on the other, each in rank according to well- 
settled rules of dignity. On the male side were, 
first, the governor and magistrates ; then persons 
holding military or other office ; then the aged, and 
those entitled to be addressed " Mr.," and so on. 
On the other side were the wives of the said 
persons and other ladies, in similar order. Imme- 
diately beneath the high pulpit was a seat for the 
ruling elder, and below this, another for the dea- 
cons. In times of danger, every man came armed 
with a gun or sword, while sentries were stationed 
in various parts of the town. 

The pastor enters, and walks reverently up to 
the pulpit. Immediately the whole congregation 
rise, and remain standing till he is seated, those 



THE JUDGES CAVE. 205 

nearest the aisle bowing to him as he passes, 
which courtesy he gracefully reciprocates. After 
the introductory services of prayer and singing, — 
the latter from Sternhold and Hopkins's version 
of the Psalms, — the sermon is begun. 

" Let us call up," says Dr. Bacon, " the shade of 
our ancient prophet. I see him rising in his 
pulpit. The folds of his gown conceal, in part, the 
slenderness of his figure, worn thin with years 
of infirmity. The broad white bands falling upon 
his breast starched and smooth, the black round 
cap, from beneath which a few snowy locks show 
themselves, the round face and delicate features, 
which, but for the short white beard, might seem 
almost feminine, the dark bright eye which shows 
that age has not yet dimmed* the fire within, com- 
plete the venerable image. Every eye is fixed upon 
him. He names his text. As he reads it, all rise 
to show their respect for the Scripture breathed 
of God. After they have been seated again he 
proceeds." 1 

Whether the venerable pastor deems it wise to- 
day to make any reference in his sermon to the 
.perils at that moment hanging over the magistrates 

1 Historical Discourse, p. 149. 



206 THE THREE JUDGES. 

and himself, we know not, but there can scarcely 
fail to be some special allusion to them in the 
prayer following. Quietly, we think, have the 
hunted victims of power entered, and taken seats 
among the worshipers. None have introduced 
them, for this would be to confess themselves the 
harborers of the guilty ; none particularly noticed 
them, for this would render them dangerously 
conspicuous. But is not the protection of God 
specially invoked in behalf of any of his faithful 
servants who are now in the midst of peril ? 
Are not his promises to them recited with ten- 
derer and more pleading tones ? Are not divine 
wisdom and guidance more earnestly implored 
for those called on to bear the burdens and re- 
sponsibilities of public affairs, and upon all the 
people of the colony, that they may be faithful 
to every trust, and courageous in every hour of 
peril ? And at the close of service the congre- 
gation, we imagine, spontaneously linger a mo- 
ment till the strangers have gone out, that they 
may retire unquestioned and unsought to their 
retreat, while many a silent blessing goes with 
them, and prayer that God will be their munition 
of rocks till the end. 



THE JUDGES CAVE. 207 

President Stiles describes the firmness of the 
heroic pastor during these days of peril in the 
following eloquent terms : " Mr. Davenport was 
a great man in every respect ; a great civilian, a 
great and deep politician as well as. divine, and 
of intrepid resolution and firmness ; and was a 
much deeper man, of greater discernment in pub- 
lic affairs, and every way superior in abilities to the 
governor, and all concerned. He saw they all 
gave up. He, like Mount Atlas, stood firm, and 
alone resolutely took the "whole upon .himself. 
Better than any of the councilors he knew that 
the secreting he had done to the 30th of April, 
and whatever could be done before the arrival 
of the royal mandate, could be vindicated by the 
laws of hospitality to unconvicted criminals, and 
could not, in a court of law, be' construed into 
even a misprision of treason. It might subject 
him to inconveniences, perhaps prosecutions, but 
could not be fatal — a thing which perhaps the 
other- doubted. Supported by his good sense 
and deep discernment, he therefore felt himself 
secure, and stood firm ; not out of obstinacy, 
which was indeed natural to him, but with an 
enlightened and judicious stability. What stag- 



208 



THE THREE JUDGES. 



gered Governor Endicott, a man of heroic for- 
titude, and other hearts of oak at Boston, never 
staggered Mr. Davenport. He alone was firm, 
unshaken, unmoved. Great minds display them- 
selves on trying and great occasions. He was the 
man for this trying occasion. Davenport's en- 
lightened greatness, fidelity, and intrepidity saved 
the judges." 




CHAPTER X. 



THE LODGE AND THE STONE STORE. 




N Monday, the 24th of June, the judges 
returned to their cave upon " Providence 
Hill," or West Rock, but do not appear 
to have long remained there. Tradition reports 
that the immediate cause of their leaving was their 
fear of wild beasts. .It is said that one night a cat- 
amount or panther thrust his head into the cave, 
and by his screams and flashing eyeballs so fright- 
ened the inmates that one or both fled down the 
mountain to Sperry's for safety. At that time 
panthers, wolves, bears, and numerous smaller wild 
animals abounded in the forests of Connecticut. 
So late as 1713a reward of five shillings was offered 
in the neighboring town of Derby to any one who 
would destroy a marauding wolf, and one of the 
authorities was empowered to call out the people 
to a wolf hunt, with a penalty of three shillings per 
14 



2IO THE THREE JUDGES. 

man for refusing to comply. 1 Such visitors as these, 
though less dangerous than the red-coated British 
pursuivants, would be manifestly unwelcome, though 
possibly intending only to reclaim their own, from 
which they had been expelled. by these human in- 
truders. 

Be that as it may, the judges preferred another 
lodging-place, which they found, as is believed, at 
the foot of the same mountain range, about two 
miles further north, where, in 1785, President Stiles 
discovered the remains of walls, and other indica- 
tions of " a small shelter, perhaps partly under 
ground. Here, too, their stay was brief, the trail 
thither having been tracked by dogs belonging to 
some Indian hunters, to whom their retreat was 
thus revealed. It was well known that large re- 

1 In his childhood the writer well remembers an aged lady 
of Woodbridge — part of the ancient town of New Haven — 
who used to relate the exploits of a bear which had killed 
several calves and lambs near her dwelling. One night he 
pulled off the slats which defended the window of her milk- 
room, got in, and drank a tray of milk, upset another, then 
took a large bowl of cream, and carried it into the meadow 
near by, where, having lapped up the contents, he carefully 
turned the bowl bottom upward, and left it unhurt upon 
a flat stone. The thief was pursued next morning and 
shot. 



THE LODGE AND THE STONE STORE. 211 

wards had been offered for any information which 
would lead to the capture of the fugitives, and it 
was feared that, friendly as the poor red men were, 
the bribe might be too great for the'ir virtue. 

The Indians who lived on the territory of the 
original town of New Haven were of two different 
tribes. On the bay and in the vicinity were the 
Quinipiacks ; further inland was a branch of the 
Maltabesicks, whose head sachem dweit on the 
Connecticut River, at what is now Middletown. 
On the west were the Milford Indians, whose chief 
settlement was called Wepawaug. All these tribes 
had been much weakened by their wars with the 
powerful Pequots on the east and Mohawks on the 
west, the Mattabesicks having, it is said, been re- 
duced to about a dozen families. They welcomed, 
therefore, the coming of the English, with their 
mysterious weapons of thunder and fire. They 
were kindly treated by the new comers in turn, and 
taken under their protection. It should be ever 
mentioned to the deserved praise of the fathers of 
the colony that all their transactions with these 
broken tribes were scrupulously just. Not a foot 
of land was taken but by fair purchase, in which 
they gave what, indeed, was not a high price for 



212 



THE THREE JUDGES. 



them, but was of great value to the sellers, — far 
greater, undoubtedly, than the land itself. For the 
first purchase of the Quinipiacks, the price paid 
was twelve coats of English cloth, twelve alchymy 
— i. e., pewter — spoons, twelve hatchets, twelve 
hoes, two dozen of knives, twelve porringers, and 
four cases of French knives and scissors. It was 
agreed also, that they should always have land 
enough to plant on the east side of the harbor, and 
should be protected from their dreaded enemies. 

The second purchase made of Montowese, son 
of the Mattabesick sachem, was for thirteen Eng- 
lish coats, the Indians retaining still the right to 
hunt and plant on that territory, which, indeed, was 

all they had ever enjoyed 
from it before. The 
agreement was duly sign- 
ed, by the parties, and 
faithfully kept. The rude 
bow and hatchet, -which 
were the signatures of 
Montowese and his com- 
panion, still attest the sin- 
- cerity with which the 
indian signatures. contract was made. And 



Montowese. 



Sawsounck 




THE LODGE AND THE STONE STORE. 213 

what is better, the hearty peace and friendship 
which, as long as a solitary remnant of these 
poor red men survived, remained unbroken, are 
the truest seal of the mutual respect they had for 
each other's rights, as the common children of the 
same Great Father. No white man's house in the 
New Haven colony was ever set on fire by am- 
bushed savages, no Indian war-whoop ever scared a 
pale-faced babe in its cradle. If the frontier popu- 
lations of the country in our own day would enjoy 
a like immunity from savage assaults, let them be 
equally careful to "do justly,- and to love mercy, 
and to walk humbly with God." 

The next remove of the judges was to a place 
ever since called " Hatchet Harbor," some four 
miles distant from Sperry's farm-house, and about 
seven from New Haven, in the present town of 
Woodbridge. Here, between two immense chest- 
nut trees, 1 evidently the remains of the primitive 
forest, is a fine spring, which must have been a 
place of frequent resort by the first settlers of that 
region, as it was by the Indians before them. 2 It 

1 President Stiles says " a walnut and a chestnut ; " but 
this is a mistake. 

2 Here the president says he found a rude Indian stone 
idol, which is still, we think, preserved at Yale College. 



214 THE THREE JUDGES. 

is in the form of a trough, or oblong inclosure 
of stones, now partially displaced, but once forming 
a beautiful reservoir of pure water. Tradition re- 
ports that its name was derived from the circum- 
stance, that when the judges were first conducted 
hither by Mr. Sperry, one of the party exclaimed, 
" Would to God we had a hatchet ! " Almost im- 
mediately a hatchet was found, left there • perhaps 
by some wandering hunter, with which they cut 
down boughs and made a temporary shelter, in 
consequence of which the spring was named 
"Hatchet Harbor." 

This was a sufficiently secure retreat, being 
situated in the heart of the forest, but for obvious 
reasons it was less eligible than might be had on 
some of the neighboring hills which commanded a 
view of the town and harbor of New Haven. They 
soon removed, therefore, to a location about a mile 
further west, near the present residence of Deacon 
William Peck. Here, by the side of a ledge of 
rocks some twenty feet high, was built a cabin of 
stone, eight by ten feet in dimensions, and covered 
over by trunks and leaves of trees. The remains 
of the walls are still visible, a sketch of which is 
given in the engraving opposite. From the top of 






■4 [ < 




THE LODGE AND THE STONE STORE. 21 5 

the ledge is a fine view of the city and Long Island 
Sound, with the intervening villages and scattered 
farms and dwellings. A little spring of clear water 
issues from the crevices of a rock a few rods dis- 
tant. " This," says President Stiles, " was undoubt- 
edly their great and principal lodge — a most 
convenient and secure situation for exile and ob- 
livion." 

In this rude abode amid the solitudes of the 
wilderness, these refugees from royal vengeance 
were compelled to make their home. How great 
a contrast with the abundance of their English 
estates, the emoluments of high rank, and the 
splendors of the Protectorate Court, all of which 
had faded from their grasp as a dream ! The dry 
leaves of the forest, with perhaps a blanket or two 
to cover them, were now their only couch, the 
stores sent at intervals by their indefatigable friend, 
Mr. Jones, with perhaps a few wild mountain 
berries, or it may be some small game caught in 
traps, — for fire-arms would endanger their dis- 
covery, — their scanty food, and water from the 
neighboring spring their only drink. 

But most insupportable of all must have been 
their utter loneliness. Save the furtive visits of the 



2l6 THE THREE JUDGES, 

faithful Sperry, there was not a soul they could 
speak to, and he probably could give them little 
information of what their hearts must -have so 
longed to know. Their Bibles, — for we think 
they could not fail to haye carried these with 
them, — and the vast book of nature around and 
above them, the grand old trees, rich in their 
summer foliage, and gracefully swaying in the 
gentle breezes, the billowy wood-crowned hills 
mellowing in the distance, and above them the 
fleecy blue of the sky and the solemn stars at 
night, — the same stars that had smiled down upon 
them in their dear native land, — these were their 
only reading. But these spoke to them of God, 
who, in the patience of his eternity, can wait for 
the fullness of time in which to perform his prom- 
ises, and who can shed peace and hope into the 
most saddened hearts ; and in these, and in their 
daily communion with him, they found compensa- 
tion for every sacrifice, and joy for every sorrow. . 

The localities in the vicinity of this retreat still 
bear many names evidently derived from the 
residence of the exiles here, such as " the Lodge," 
"the Harbor," "the Spring," " Hatchet Harbor," 
" the Fort," " the Lookout," " Providence Hill," etc. 



THE LODGE AND THE STONE STORE. 217 

The last of these seems to be improperly applied, 
the name strictly belonging to the West Rock, 
where was their cave, unless, indeed, which is not 
improbable, the judges gave the same name to 
several of their places of refuge. We know that 
Go fife used to date h'is letters to his 'friends from 
" Ebenezer," wherever he may have been, and he 
may for a li£e reason have had more than one 
Providence Hill. 

A local tradition explains the matter thus — 
that one day, while walking upon the top of a 
neighboring hill, which the Indians had kept free 
from \voods by frequent burnings, to give them a 
clear view for hunting deer, the judges imagined 
themselves discovered, and, taking to the thickets, 
they sped northward along the valley to deceive, 
their supposed pursuers, and having thus given 
them a false scent, they turned westward, and came 
round the hill to their old place in security ; on 
account of which deliverance, they named it " Prov- 
idence Hill." It is well known how tenaciously 
all localities retain their ancient designations, and 
the numerous names of this sort attached to 
various points in this vicinity are conclusive 
proofs of the fact, alluded to in Gofife's journal, 



2l8 THE THREE JUDGES. 

of their having made this one of the most con- 
siderable of their hiding-places during that summer 
of 1661. 

On the 19th of August, the judges removed 
from the " Lodge " to Milford, ten miles west of 
New Haven. The search for them was now 
probably over, and they may well have desired 
an abode nearer to the habitations of 'men. 

The early settlers of Milford were a part of the 
company who first came to New Haven, and 
afterward divided into three parties, constituting 
the three plantations of New Haven, Guilford, 
and Milford. It is said that the cause of their 
separation was, mainly, that those of the first 
party were originally from London, bred to mer- 
chandise, and preferred a place convenient for 
trading ; the others were rather country people, 
and desired lands suitable for agriculture. To 
these were added a number of settlers from 
Wethersfield, including their pastor, Rev. Mr. 
Prudden. 

They were all alike of the strictest school of the 
Puritans, and were imbued with the warmest love 
for the principles contended for by the common- 
wealth men in the civil war of England. Of 



THE LODGE AND THE STONE STORE. 219 

course, they would be in warmest sympathy with 
the fugitive judges. It is believed, however, that 
their presence in that town was, until near the 
"end of their residence there, known, at most, to 
two or three persons only, viz., Mr. Tomkins, in 
whose house they lived, Rev. Mr. Newton, the 
minister of the parish, and perhaps Mr. Fenn and 
Mr. Treat, the last two, as we have seen, magis- 
trates of the colony, and Mr. Treat subsequently 
deputy-governor and governor." It may curiously 
illustrate the character of some of the office-holders 
of those days, to state that, having held the office 
of governor, the highest then in the land, seventeen 
years, from 1682 to 1699, he then, on the return 
of Governor John Winthrop from England, where 
he had acted as agent for the colony, requested 
the freemen to elect Mr. Winthrop in his stead. 
This they accordingly did, Mr. Treat taking the 
lower place of deputy-governor, and holding it 
till the death of Governor Winthrop, in 1710, when, 
being now eighty-six years of age, he declined to 
continue longer in public life. 1 

1 Governor Treat's wife was Jane, the only daughter of 
Mr. Edmund Tapp, one of the seven pillars of the Milford 
church. The following story is told of his marriage. He 



220 THE THREE JUDGES. 

The judges were secreted in Milford in a house 
standing on the west side of the principal street, 
some thirty rods south of the present first Con- 
gregational church, near where now is the residence 
of Mr. Nathan Merwin. It was a building about 
twenty feet square, and two stories high, of which 
the lower was of stone. It is the tradition, that" 
Mr. Tomkins built it for the judges, under the 
pretense that it was to be a store. More probably, 
however, this was its original design, and that it 
had been used for that purpose before their arrival, 
but was now discontinued, so that its being closed 
would not be likely to attract much notice among 
the townsmen. The judges occupied the lower 
part of the building, the upper story being used 
by the family as a work-room, especially for spin- 
ning and weaving, both of which were among the 
most important household arts of that .day. The 
family were accustomed to carry on their work 
here> wholly ignorant of the fact that there were 
living occupants of the apartment below. 

was visiting one day at her father's, when he playfully drew 
Miss Jane upon his knee, and commenced trotting her. 
" Robert," said she, "be still that ; I had rather be Treated, 
than trotted." Robert accepted the hint, and took the lady 
at her word. — Barber's Hist. Coll. 



THE LODGE AND THE STONE STORE. 221 

* While the exiles were secreted in Milford, it is 
said that one of the women employed at spinning 
by Mr. Tomkins used to entertain her associates 
by singing a satirical ballad which had just come 
from England, ridiculing the judges and their 
cause, not dreaming who were a portion of her 
auditors. The latter were so much amused by 
this, that they frequently requested her employer 
to set her upon singing the ludicrous production, 
glad to while away the "tedium of their confinement 
by a diversion ' purchased at their own expense. 
" The girls," it is g said, " knew nothing of the 
matter, being ignorant of the innocent device, 
and little thought that they were serenading 
angels." 

Finding themselves in comparative safety, and 
the excitement attending 'the search for them 
having subsided, the judges prolonged their stay 
in Milford more than two years, though maintain- 
ing a seclusion scarcely less unbroken than that 
of their forest Lodge. Doubtless the two or three 
persons already named came to see them oc- 
sionally, and through these they might commu- 
nicate cautiously with their friends elsewhere. 
Especially would they take care to let Governor 



222 THE THREE JUDGES. 

Leete know where they were, according to their 
understanding with him. 

We may suppose also that a few books were 
furnished them from the library of the good Pas- 
tor Newton. Newspapers were, of course, a thing 
then unknown in the colonies, although they had 
begun to be issued in England. The first publica- 
tion of this sort in New Haven did not appear till 
nearly one hundred years after this. It is difficult 
for us of the present day to conceive of the isola- 
tion of a little settlement in New England two 
hundred years ago, when, as yet, there was no 
post, no public conveyances for travel, no wheeled 
carriages, and few roads except bridle paths 
through the forests ; when, if a person wished 
to go to a neighboring town, he must either walk, 
or ride on horseback, and when a letter must be 
conveyed by a special messenger, unless some 
chance traveler was going to its destination. It 
is not to be wondered at that, in such circum- 
stances, the gathering of all the people on the 
Sabbath for public worship served, to a large 
extent, as the occasion for telling and hearing 
news, for the delivery of letters and messages, 
and the interchange of those friendly greetings 



THE LODGE AND THE STONE STORE. 223 

and courtesies which are so necessary to the very- 
existence of society. If, as our old people tell us, 
there is a relative falling off in church attendance 
•in modern times, the reason may in part be found 
in the greater facilities now enjoyed for inter- 
communication with the world. 

Notwithstanding their rigid seclusion, however, 
the judges managed to maintain a guarded corre- 
spondence with a few friends. Mr. Hooke occa- 
sionally wrote to them from England. Mr. Dav- 
enport sometimes came over to see them, and 
frequently found means to send to them por- 
tions of his own correspondence. In a few in- 
stances letters were shown them by some of 
the Milford people, among whom are mentioned 
Deacon Richard Miles and " Brother Baldwin." 
Besides these, a printed " Newsletter " from Eng- 
land was once in a while sent therri. These Col- 
onel Goffe was in the habit of copying out, in 
whole or in part, adding an occasional note of 
his own, which are still preserved in his own hand- 
writing in the "Mather Papers." 1 "The names 
of the authors, and sometimes other matters, are 
in cipher, showing how dangerous such a corre- 

1 Published in the Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. viii. pp. 122-225. 



224 THE THREE JUDGES. 

spondence was regarded to the parties concerned in 
it. A few extracts will be of interest to our readers. 

" It was ordered by the Parliam*, that the 
L d Mounson, S r James Harrington arid S r Hen : 
Mildmay (who sate as Judges of the late K.) shall 
be degraded of there honors & Titles, & shall be 
drawn vpon Sledges with Ropes about there 
necks, from the Tower of London to & vnder 
the Gallowes at Tiburne, thence to be carried 
Back to the Tower, there to remain prisoners 
during there lives. The like was resolved of Mr.' 
Wallop & Mr. Phelps [Phillips]. And that a Bill 
be brought in for the Confiscation of the Estates 
both Reall & p'sonell of the Judges, 21 that are 
Dead, & that a Clause be inserted for the Exe- 
cution of those 19 allready convicted & con- 
demned. Evidence is to be brought in against 
S r Arth: H'aslerigg : S r Hen: Vaine & Coll. 
Lambert are left to the tryall of the Law." 

"As to the K's Judges, 10 of those 19 Con- 
demned (of whom Tichbourne is one) are par- 
doned as to there lives, but adjudged to p'petuall 
Imprissonm* & to be drawne once in every yeere 
vpon Hurdles with Halters about there necks 
from the Tower to the Gallowes att Tybourne, 



THE LODGE AND THE STONE STORE. 225 

& there to stand six Houres with there hands 
and faces besmeared with blood." 

A letter from Mr. Hooke to Mr. Davenport con- 
tains the following account of the way in which 
the new king was accustomed to divert himself. 

" You will heere by the bearer, of the play of the 
Puritan 'before the Highest, where were p r sent 
(as they say) the E : Manchester & 3 B ppa [bishops] 
and London one of them. In it were rep r sented 
2 Presbiterians vnder the forme of M r Baxter : & 
M r Callamy,' whose Habitt & actions were sett 
forth : prayers were made in imitation of the 
Puritan, with such scripture expressions as I am 
loath to mention ^— One representing the Puritan 
put in the stockes for stealing a pigg, & the stockes' 
found by him vnlockt, which he admires att as a 
wonderfull providence & fruite of prayer, vpon 
which he consults about his call whether he should 
come forth or not, & at last p r ceived it was his way, 
& forth he comes, lifting vp his eyes to heaven, & 
falls to prayse and thanksgiving," etc. 

Mr. Hooke had written to Rev. Mr. Street, col- 
league of Mr. Davenport of New Haven, of the 
the danger to be apprehended from the visit of the 
king's officers. In relation to it he says, — 
15 



226 THE THREE JUDGES. 

" The letter was not so well vnderstood, I be- 
leeve, as you desired, but the man [Mr. Hooke him- 
self]* was in the country when he wrote it, who 
sent it vp to the Cyty, to be sent by what hand 
he knew not, nor yet knoweth who caryed it, & 
such were the times that he durst not expresse 
matte" as he would, but he fore sawe what fell out 
among you & was willing you [Mr. Davenport] 
should bee secured as well as his other freinds, & 
therefore he wrote that they [the regicides] might 
not be found among you, but provided for by you in 
some secret places, &c. My wives relations here 
[Goffe's family] are competently well, onely 1 
heard lately as • that her Neece [Mrs. G.] had 
an Ague. . I hope yet all wilbee well, though I 
now hcare (as. I am writing) of anothe 1 " orde r . to 
"bee' sent ove r , yet still I beleeve God will suffer no 
man to touch you." 

A letter to Deputy Governor Gilbert seems to 
intimate that the magistrates were needlessly 
alarmed when they proposed to give up the 
judges the preceding June. 

" I am sorry to see that yo w should be soe much 
surprized with feares of what men can or may doe 
vnto yo w . The feare-of an evill is oft times more 



THE LODGE AND THE STONE STORE. 227 

than the evill feared. I heare of n'oe danger, nor 
doe I thinke any will attend yo w for that matter. 
Had not W : L : [Leete] wrote such a pitifull letter 
over, the Bussines I thinke would have dyed. 
What it may doe to iiim I know not : they 
have greater matters than that to exersise there 
thoughts." 

The greater part of this collection of news con- 
sists of what modern newspapers would call 
" Scraps," being miscellaneous items of intelli- 
gence, with anecdotes, rumors; and gossip gen- 
erally. Of course the sufferings inflicted on those 
in the late "rebellion," the increase -of impiety 
and licentiousness, the decline of religion, etc., are 
very frequently mentioned. There are also nu- 
merous accounts of marvelous phenomena, prod- 
igies, and omens, daily occurring, which show that 
Cotton .Mather's wonderful stories of what hap- 
pened here had their full counterpart in England, 
and that the " superstitions " with which that 
great divine is so often charged were characteris- 
tic not so much of the man as the times, being 
entertained by the wisest and most sagacious 
men in the kingdom. A single specimen will 
suffice. 



228 THE THREE JUDGES. 

"Last Decern, there were horses seene lighting 
downe fr5 heaven vpon the ground in Wales 
& marching in a warlicke posture to the Amazem* 
of many behoulders. Vpon the 3 d of March it 
rained wheate & Rye & pease in severall places 
in Dorsett. A godly Minister that saw it, & tasted 
some of it writes me word of it. The Tast there- 
of was very loathsome." 

After a couple of years' residence in Milford^ 
the judges, finding themselves unmolested, ven- 
tured to allow themselves a little more liberty. 
They began to mingle a little in the society of 
the place, and frequently held religious meetings 
in the stone store, where Colonel Goffe " ex- 
ercised " or preached. It has been before stated, 
that he Was distinguished for his ability in this 
direction in England, and he now seems to 
have improved his gift to great acceptance, 
whenever opportunity was afforded him. He was 
a diligent student of the prophecies, and as 
skillful in the interpretation and application of 
the mystical arithmetic of Daniel and John as 
many in later days. His letters to his wife and 
other friends abroad abound in allusions to these 
matters. A favorite belief of his was, that the 



THE LODGE AND THE STONE- STORE. 229 

execution of the regicides was the slaying of the 
two witnesses mentioned in Revelation xi., and 
great revolutions were expected to take place not 
later than the year 1666.. Doubtless these views 
constituted, to a considerable extent, the theme of 
his " exercising " and would be listened to with 
profound interest by all those who were suffering 
under the oppressions of the restored monarchy. 




CHAPTER XI. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE NEW HAVEN MAGISTRATES. 




EANWHILE how did the colony of New 
Haven settle the matter of their delin- 
quency with the king ? 
Doubtless they were for a time much alarmed, 
and in no little real danger. On the" 30th of July, 
ten days after their -determination not to surrender 
the judges to Governor Leete,' at Guilford, they 
received a letter, dated on the 4th, from Edward 
Rawson, secretary of the council of the Massachu- 
setts colony, informing them that a letter had been 
sent from England, by Captain Leverett, saying 
that many complaints had been made against them 
for undutiful- conduct toward his Majesty, especially 
in not proclaiming him king since , his restoration, 
and in harboring the king's enemies among them. 
. "lam required," said the secretary, " to signify to 
you, as from them [the Massachusetts Council], that 



THE NEW HAVEN MAGISTRATES. 23 1 

the non-attendance with diligence to execute the 
kings warrant for the apprehending of Colonels 
Whalley and Goffe will much hazard the present 
state of these colonies, and your own particularly, 
if not some of your persons, which is not a little 
afflictive to them. And that in their understanding- 
there remains- no way to expiate the offense, and 
preserve yourselves from the danger and hazard, 
but by apprehending the said persons, who, as we 
are informed, are yet remaining in the colony, and 
not above a fortnight since were seen there, all 
which will be against you. Sir, your own welfare, 
the welfare of your neighbors, bespeak your unwea- 
ried pains to free yourself and neighbors." 

In a postscript, dated the 15th, Secretary Raw- 
son adds, " Sir, since what I wrote, news and cer- 
tain intelligence is come hither of the two colonels 
being at New Haven from Saturday to Monday, 
and publicly known ; and however it is given out 
that they came to surrender themselves, and pre- 
tended by Mr. Gilbert that he looked when they 
would have come in and delivered up themselves, 
never setting a guard about the house, nor endeav- 
oring to secure them,-but when it was too late to 
send to Totoket, &c, — Sir, how this will be taken is 



232 THE THREE JUDGES. 

not difficult to imagine, to be sure not well ; nay, will 
not all men condemn you as wanting' to yourselves, 
and that you have something to rely on, at least 
that you hope will answer your ends ? I am not 
willing to meddle with your hopes, but if it be a 
duty to obey such lawful warrants, as I believe it. is, 
the neglect thereof will prove uncomfortable. Par- 
don me, sir, it's my desire you may regain your 
peace (and if you please to give me notice when 
you will send the two colonels), though Mr. Wood-- 
green is bound hence within a month, yet if you 
shall' give me assurance of their coming, I shall not 
only endeavor, but do hereby engage to cause his 
stay a fortnight, nay, three weeks> rather than they 
should not be sent." 

The New Haven magistrates felt these represen- 
tations very keenly. . It appeared that they were 
not only endangering themselves, but bringing re- 
proach and peril upon all their sister colonies. A 
General Court was convened the very next day, — 
August i, — to consider the matter. The result 
was a reply addressed to their Massachusetts breth- 
ren touching all the points of their letter. 

First, as to their neglect in proclaiming and 
sending their loyal address to the king, it was 



•THE NEW HAVEN MAGISTRATES. 233 

through no lack of loyalty, but their ignorance of 
the proper mode of doing it ; but having seen the 
form in which Massachusetts had done it, they ap- 
proved it, and did theji and there adopt it as their 
own, promising full subjection and allegiance. As 
to not apprehending the regicides, they declared it 
was not through any contempt for the king's au- 
thority, but that they . supposed the colonels had 
left the colony before the king's proclamation was 
received. Then, when it did appear, they had 
scruples of conscience as to obeying it, because, 
being addressed to the Governor of New England, 
if they acknowledged it, it might seem like recog- 
nizing Mr. Endicott..as a general governor over all 
the colonies, which would be hostile to the liberties 
of the people ; and though other magistrates were 
mentioned in it, yet they seemed to be considered 
only as officers under him. The reason why they 
did not arrest the judges when they came to town 
on the nth of June was, that they supposed they 
had come on purpose to surrender themselves, ac- 
cording to their promise, so that it was not neces- 
sary ; they had done what they could to persuade 
their friends to deliver them up ; they did not know 
where they then were, but would secure them if 



234 • THE THREE JUDGES. 

they had a chance. As for Messrs. Kellond and 
Kirk, they intimated that they were over-officious, 
intermeddling with what belonged to the- governor 
and magistrates only, for which they had no au- 
thority. They closed by asking that the General 
Court of Massachusetts would favorably report them 
to f his Majesty, and offered to join in defraying the 
expenses of a resident agent in London, to inter- 
cede for them at court, to defeat the designs of 
their enemies, and procure all needed acts of in- 
demnity and grace. 

About the same time Rev. Mr. Davenport ad- 
dressed " An Apology "to the Deputy Governor of 
Massachusetts, to be communicated to the General 
Court," to assure them of " his innocency in refer- 
ence to the two Colonels, and that of this poore Col- 
ony, of our Governor and Magistrates, who wanted 
neither will nor Industerey to have served his Majtie 
in apprehending the 2 Colonells, but were Prevent- 
ed and Hindered by god's overruilling Providence, 
which withheld them that they could not exciqute 
their true Purpose therein. I believe if his Majestie 
Rightly understood the Curcumstances of the Event 
he would' not be displeased with our Magistrates, 
but to acquiesce in the Providence of the most 
high." 



THE NEW HAVEN MAGISTRATES. 235 

These statements appear to have been accepted 
as satisfactory, at least so far as the authorities at 
New Haven were concerned; and the regicides 
being now literally out of the settled part of the 
colony, if not beyond its territorial limits, in the 
depths, of the forest, it was taken for granted that 
they had escaped. To complete, however, all requi- 
site official action, the following Declaration was 
adopted by the Assembly, of the Commissioners of 
the United* Colonies, at their meeting in Hartford, 
September 5 : — 

"Whereas it. appeareth by his Majisty's order 
directed to John Endicott, Esq., Governor of the 
Massachusetts, & to all other Governors and Magis- 
trates' in New England, and by him communicated to, 
the respective Governors of the United Colonies, for 
the apprehending of Edward Whalley and William 
GofTe,. who stand convicted of high treason for the 
horrid murder of his royal Father, as is expressed 
in the said order, and exempted from pardon by the 
act of indemnity ; in obedience whereunto diligent 
search hath been made for the said persons in the 
several colonies (as we are informed) ; and whereas, 
notwithstanding, it is conceived probable that the 



236 THE THREE JUDGES. 

said persons may remain hid in some parts of New- 
England, these are therefore seriously to advise and 
forewarn all persons whatever within the colonies 
not to receive, harbor, conceal, or s\iccor the said 
persons so attainted, or either of them, but that as 
they may have any knowledge or information where 
the said Whalley-and Goffe are, that they forthwith 
make known the same to some of the Governors or 
Magistrates next residing, and in the mean time do 
their utmost endeavor for their apprehending and 
securing, as they will answer the contrary at their 
utmost peril. And we do hereby further declare 
that all such person or persons, that since the pub- 
lication of his Magisty's order, have wittingly and 
willingly entertained or harbored the aforesaid 
AVhalley and Goffe, or hereafter shall do the like, 
have and will incur his Majesty's highest displeas- 
ure, as is intimated in the said order, and will be 
accounted enemies to the public peace and welfare 
of the United Colonies, and may expect to be pro- 
ceeded with accordingly. 

John Mason, Symon Bradstreet, 

Samuel Willis, Daniel Denison, 

William Leet, Thos. Southworth." 
Thomas Prince, 



THE NEW HAVEN MAGISTRATES. 237 

With this proclamation all active efforts for the 
apprehension of the judges ceased, and the subject 
about this time became complicated with another 
of more absorbing interest, viz., the proposed union 
of the two colonies of Connecticut and New. 
Haven. 

In consequence of disputes which had arisen 
between Massachustts and Connecticut, as to the 
limits of their respective jurisdiction, the latter 
dispatched their governor, Mr. Winthrop, as a 
special agent to obtain a new charter from the 
king. He was a gentleman of great ability, of 
broad and generous views, and of a winning ad- 
dress. " In him," says Bancroft, " the qualities of 
human excellence were mingled in such happy 
proportions, that, while he always wore an air of 
contentment, no enterprise in which he engaged 
seemed too lofty for his powers. Even as a child, 
he had been the pride of his father's house ; he 
had received the best instruction which Cambridge 
and Dublin could afford, and had perfected his 
education by visiting, in part at least in the public 
service, not Holland and France only,' in the days 
of Prince Maurice and Richelieu, but Venice and 
Constantinople. 



238 THE THREE JUDGES. 

" From boyhood his manners had been spotless, 
and the purity of his soul added luster and beauty 
to the gifts of nature and industry ; as he traveled 
through Europe, he sought the society of men 
eminent for learning. Returning to England in 
the bloom of life, with- every promise of prefer- 
ment which genius, gentleness of temper, and 
influence at court could inspire, he preferred to 
follow his father to the new world, regarding 
' diversities of countries but as so many inns/ 
alike conducting to 'the* journey's end.' When 
his father, the father of Massachusetts, became 
impoverished by his expenses in planting the 
colony, the pious son, unsolicited, and without 
recompense, relinquished his large inheritance, 
that it might be spent in furthering the great 
work in Massachusetts, himself, single-handed 
and without wealth, engaging in the enterprise 
of planting Connecticut. Care for posterity 
seemed to be the motive to his actions. 

" His knowledge of human nature was as re- 
markable as his virtues. He never attempted 
impracticable things, but understanding the springs 
of action, and the principles' that control affairs, 
he calmly and wisely succeeded in all that he 



THE NEW HAVEN MAGISTRATES. 239 

undertook. If he had faults, they are forgotten. 
In history he appears, by unanimous consent, 
from early life without a blemish ; and it is the 
beautiful testimony of his own father, . that ' God 
gave him favor in the eyes of all with whom he 
had to do.'" 

It .was the happiness of New Haven that this 
rare man regarded her interests as well as those 
of Connecticut, his own colony, vindicating her 
loyalty and repelling the accusations which had 
been made against her. Fortunately, at that 
time there were two' persons high in favor at 
court, who had been life-long friends .of the col- 
onies. Lord Say-and-Seal, who had been a mem- 
ber of the Long Parliament, and one of the 
patentees of the colony, had been active in bring- 
ing about the king's restoration, and was' now 
Lord Privy Seal. The Earl of Manchester, whom 
Charles I. had attempted to seize in Parliament, 
along with the five members of the House of Com- 
mons, had now become a friend of the king, 
and was Lord Chamberlain of his Majesty's house- 
hold. 

To these gentlemen Mr. Winthrop presented 
himself with- letters from the General Court, and 



240 THE THREE JUDGES. 

was received with much favor. The governor, 
it is said, had a valuable ring, which had been 
given to his father by Charles I. ; this he now 
presented to. the king. The graceful act exceed- 
ingly pleased, his Majesty, and the result was, 
that he listened most graciously to the colony's 
application, and granted them a charter of the 
most liberal kind. Its terms embraced the colony 
of New Haven also ; and although the latter were 
loth to lose their independence, and for a time 
refused to accept the jurisdiction of the new 
charter, yet, after a little while their reluctance 
was overcome. The manifest advantages of that 
instrument, the necessity of union with their 
sister colony for defense against the Indians 
and Dutch, and other reasons, won from them 
at last a reluctant consent, and the union was 
happily consummated in 1665. It was this charter 
which twenty years later became memorable from 
the attempt under James II. to revoke it, to avoid 
which it was secreted in the famous oak at Hart- 
ford. So excellent were its provisions, that when 
the colony became a state, at the revolution, it was 
still retained as the fundamental instrument of 
government, and continued in force till the year 



THE NEW HAVEN MAGISTRATES. 24I 

18 1 8, when it was superseded by the present 
constitution. 

So ended all the active attempts to arrest the 
fugitives, or to call the colony to account for se- 
creting them. From time to time, indeed, inquiries 
were made after them by royal officers or agents, 
but no information could be obtained. The last 
instance of the kind was that of the notorious 
Randolph, in 1683, at which time both were dead. 
In the colony itself, the magistrates were rewarded 
with* renewed honors. Governor Leete and Dep- 
uty Governor Gilbert were re-elected, and Mr. 
Jones, who had been and still was their most 
active friend, was chosen one of the magistrates, 
and the next year (1664) Deputy Governor. Loyal 
indeed the colonists were to their sovereign, as 
they understood loyalty, but they also believed 
they held a higher allegiance to Him whose 
servants they recognized in the outlawed and 
hunted exiles that had thrown themselves on 
their protection. Faithfully and well did they 
discharge their trust. 
16 






CHAPTER XII, 



REMOVAL TO HADLEY. 




HILE the judges were enjoying their 
increased liberty at the old stone store 
in Milford, there came news to them, 
in the summer of 1664, which renewed their most 
serious apprehensions. Commissioners had been 
appointed by the king to visit the colonies, to 
hear and adjust disputed questions of bounda- 
ries, " and proceed in all things for the provid- 
ing for. and settling the peace and security of the 
said country, according to their good and sound 
discretion." They were also specially instructed 
to inquire whether any persons attainted for high 
treason were now within the colony, or had " been 
entertained and received there," and to apprehend 
such persons if they could be discovered. If this 
were attempted, no place would be so likely to 
receive the most thorough attention as this col- 



REMOVAL TO HADLEY. 243 

ony of New Haven, where the refugees had last 
been seen, and whose people still remained under 
the known suspicion of harboring and concealing 
them. It was at once decided, therefore, that 
their safety demanded a speedy flight to some 
locality hitherto unsuspected, and where they 
would be as far away as possible from the likeli- 
hood of pursuit. 

Far away in the north-west, on the then remotest 
frontier of the English plantations, was the little 
settlement of Hadley, which had been founded 
six years before by the Rev. John Russell and 
a portion of his congregation from Wethersfield, 
Conn. It will be remembered that a num- 
ber of the early settlers of Milford, together with 
their pastor, Rev. Mr. Prudden, had come thither 
from Wethersfield. From this circumstance, doubt- 
less, an acquaintance had been perpetuated between 
these two towns, which, upon the removal of Mr. 
Russell and his friends to Hadley, would nat- 
urally extend thither also. Mr. Russell was an 
ardent Puritan, and a man of great courage and 
resolution, and, on learning the imperiled condi- 
tion, of the patriots at Milford, did not hesitate 
to incur the risk of receiving them to the shelter 



244 THE THREE JUDGES. 

of his own house, where, in the far remote and 
almost unknown hamlet in the wilderness, sur- 
rounded by bands of hostile Indians, they would be 
beyond the reach of discovery. 

Accordingly, they set forth from Milford on the 
13th of October, for their long and tedious journey. 
They traveled only by night, resting during the 
day at various lodging-places on the way, which 
they called " harbois." One of these, on the bank 
of the rivulet in the present city of Meriden, 
still bears the name of " Pilgrim's Harbor." The 
journey thus accomplished must have occupied 
nearly a week, the distance being little less than 
a hundred miles. No one in the place knew 
of their arrival, except the family of the pastor 
and one or two of the leading inhabitants. 

Mr. Russell's house was still standing in 1792, 
and was visited by President Stiles, who describes 
it thus : — 

" Although repaired with additions, yet the 
chamber of the judges remains obviously in its 
original state, unmutilated, as when these exiled 
worthies inhabited it. Adjoining to it behind, 
or at the north end of the large chimney, was 
a closet, in the floor of which I saw still remain- 



REMOVAL TO HADLEY. 245 

ing the trap-door through which they let them- 
selves down into an under-closet, and so thence 
descended into the cellar for concealment in case 
of search or surprise." 

A still fuller description of this hiding-place 
is given in Judd's History of Hadley, from the 
lips of Mr. C. Gaylord, who was born and had 
long lived in the house. 

" Before he was born, his father took down the 
north or kitchen part of the Russell house, and 
rebuilt it in nearly the same place. It was two 
stories high . in the front, westward, and one in 
the rear, and the old cellar remained. Above were 
two spacious chambers, and overhead appeared 
the joists and garret-floor whitewashed. North 
of the chimney was an inclosed place with two 
doors, used as a passage between the chambers, 
and for other purposes. The floor boards of this 
passage or closet were laid from the chimney to 
the north side, and the ends went under the 
boards that inclosed the apartment. One board 
•at least was not fastened down, and it could be 
slipped one or two inches to the north or south, 
and one end could then be raised up. [This 
must have been President Stiles's trap-door.] Mr. 



246 THE THREE JUDGES/ 

Gaylord, when a boy, had many times raised this 
board and let himself down into the space below, 
and restored the board to its place above him. 
He was then in a dark hole, which had no opening 
into any of the lower rooms ; if there was once 
a passage into the kitchen cellar, it had been 
closed. There is a tradition that the judges 
were once concealed in this dark place behind 
the chimney, when searchers went through the 
passage above. They could easily lift the board 
and hide themselves in this under-closet." 

Tradition also relates that the exiles staid 
part of the time at the houses of the Hon. 
Peter Tilton and Lieutenant Samuel Smith, two 
of the prominent residents of the place. Indeed, 
we know that Mr. Tilton was one of their warmest 
friends, and the chief medium of communication 
between them and the outside world. 

In this remote asylum the judges passed the 
next twelve years, at least, until the death of Col- 
onel Whalley, which occurred about 1675. So 
close was their seclusion that few incidents have 
transpired concerning them, even in tradition. 
The little that is known is derived from the 
letters contained in the " Mather Papers," already 



REMOVAL TO HADLEY. 247 

referred to (p. 223). It appears from these, that 
they still maintained a guarded correspondence 
with their friends abroad, by means of which, and 
of the " newsletters " occasionally sent them, they 
were kept tolerably well informed of affairs. 
Their letters were for the most part transmitted 
through Dr. Increase Mather, of Boston, who 
sought for opportunities of sending them by safe 
hands to their destination. Goffe's letters to Dr. 
Mather himself abound in the most grateful . ac- 
knowledgment of the favors thus rendered to 
them, and the most fervent supplications for bless- 
ings upon- their benefactor in return. 

On- the 10th of February, 1665, the exiles were 
visited at Hadley by Colonel Dixwell, one of their 
fellow-judges, who, after the Restoration, had fled 
to Germany. When or how he came thence to 
this country is not known. That he received a 
cordial greeting from his old companions in duty 
and danger there can be no question. How 
much they had mutually to communicate of their 
history since they last met ! how many hard- 
ships endured, how many dangers escaped ! What 
painful events had they to recount concerning 
mutual friends and associates, some of whom 



248 THE THREE JUDGES. 

were in exile, some in prison, and not a few, 
alas ! consigned to a felon's death and infamy ! 
How many tears had they to shed for poor, be- 
loved, re-enslaved England ; for her persecuted 
ministers and churches, and for the cause of truth 
and righteousness cast down to the ground! Of- 
ten must the chambers of the good pastor have 
borne witness to the sacred griefs of this com- 
munion of the Lord's servants, and their mutual 
supplications for themselves and for all they held 
most dear. 

Colonel Dixwell remained several weeks, per- 
haps months, in the society of his fellow-exiles 
at Hadley, and then removed, and after some years, 
under the assumed name of James Davids, fixed 
his residence at New Haven. Doubtless he wa$ 
led to do this by the reports received from them 
of the temper of the people of that town, and 
the certainty that he would there find himself 
among friends. We shall speak more fully of 
him in a subsequent chapter. 

Among the papers mentioned, there are no 
letters either to or from Colonel Whalley dis- 
tinctively. He was now ari old man, and prob- 
ably the labor of writing was irksome to him ; 



REMOVAL TO HADLEY. 249 

possibly ' he was already falling into that state 
of imbecility in which his last days were spent. 
His son-in-law performed that service for both ; 
and, indeed, their circle of relatives and friends 
was so nearly . the same that there could be no 
occasion for any separate correspondence. 

Chief in interest of all their letters are those 
which passed between Goffe and his wife. They 
are disguised under fictitious names, purporting to 
be those of a son and his mother, the former called 
Walter Goldsmith, and the latter Frances Gold- 
smith. Their principal theme, after the fashion 
of that day, is religion ; but there is also much 
tenderness of affection and concern for each 
other's welfare, and often a grave playfulness, 
which shows that their hearts were not wholly 
crushed by separation and sorrow. 

The first which we have is from Mrs. Goffe, 
under date of October 13, 1671. Why those 
which she must -have written during the ten 
years preceding were not preserved we do not 
know. She was a very bad speller, as were most 
of the* ladies of that time, and we will do her 
the favor to let her be read in our modern or- 
thography, rather than her own. 



250 THE THREE JUDGES. 

" For my dear friend, Walter Goldsmith, these. 
Dear Child : I have been abundantly refreshed by 
thy choice letter of the 10th of August, and also by 
the book [probably his journal] you took the pains 
to write for me. I bless the Lord it came in very 
good time to my hands, I being now with my dear 
aunt Jane [Mrs. Hooke], to whom we are engaged 
for her kindness. She took it very kindly that you 
wrote to her, and returns thanks. Through mercy 
we are all in health, and do experience much of the 
love and care of our good God in supporting 
and providing for us in such a day of trial as 
this. I rejoice to hear that the country agrees 
so well with you, and that you thrive so well. 
It is the Lord's blessing, and it is marvelous in 
our eyes that we should be provided for when 
many of his dear children want. The Lord 
make us truly thankful, and give us hearts to 
be willing to be without what he will not have 
us to enjoy, though never so much desired by us. 
We are to be at the disposal of our heavenly 
Father, and though he exercise us here with hard 
things, heaven will make amends for all. 

" I know not whether this may come to you safe, 
and therefore shall be the briefer ; but I am will- 



REMOVAL TO HADLEY. 251 

ing to take all opportunities to let you know 
how it is with us, and how dear you are to 
me and your three sisters [daughters], longing 
greatly to see you. I bless the Lord your sisters 
are not taken with the vanities of the times. 

" I am glad you received what was sent. We 
are fain to be thrifty [i. e., careful of expenditure], 
and therefore I shall forbear sending till I hear 
what it is you want ; but if in anything I can 
serve you, pray command me, for I shall do it to 
the utmost of my power, if the Lord permit. 
I beg your prayers and promise mine, and with 
my endeared love to thyself, and duty and ser- 
vice to all friends, committing you and them to 
the safer protection of the Almighty, I take my 
leave, and till death remain 

" Your dear and loving mother, to my power, 

" Fra. Goldsmith." 

In a postscript Mrs. Goffe adds a little med- 
ical advice, both for his " friend " — probably her 
father — and for himself. 

" Surely tobacco is very good for your friend ; 
but, by the next I hope to send some particular 
direction, for I purpose to take advice of an old 



252 ' THE THREE JUDGES. 

friend ; but this is so sudden that I have no time. 
By reason of the cold, if you wear a periwig you 
might enjoy more of the air ; if so, pray send 
for one." 

As is suggested above, the exiles were well 
supplied with money from their friends, both 
in Old and New England. On one occasion, 
Mr. Richard Saltonstall sent them fifty pounds. 
Indeed, they seem to have been able to do some- 
thing for their own support by trading — of 
course through the agency of third persons — with 
the Indians in their neighborhood. Thus Goffe, 
in his reply, to the foregoing letter, remarks, — 

" You will p r ceive how the Lord is pleased to 
send in supplies for the carrying on of a little 
trade here among the Indians ; as the p r sent stock 
in N : E : money between my p r tn r [partner] and 
my selfe is somew* above ioo li. [pounds], all 
Debts p d , therefore pray speake to Mrs. Jaines 
[Mrs. Hooke] not to send any more till shee be 
desired from hence, tho : wee do not every yeare 
receive a fresh Token, yet what wee weare & eat 
may evry day put us in minde of her, & of her 
kindnes, & therefore neither she, nor her labo r of 
loue can be forgotten by us. All the things sent 



REMOVAL TO HADLEY. 253 

by Fairewether are come to hand. Besides what 
was written in a little paper by your own sweet 
hand, we have rec d 6 p r of gloves & 40 9 in silver, 
not mentioned in any letter or paper that is come 
to us." 

Whether the tobacco was likely to be as useful 
as she hoped he does not say, but he doubts the 
sufficiency of the periwig. 

" I humbly thank you for the continuance of 
your motherly affection towards me, most un- 
worthy thereof, and in p r ticular for your care 
to fence me against the cold ayre. But the way 
you p r pose will not doe it, for I must tell you the 
aire of this countrey in the winter is exceeding 
pearcing, that a sickly person must not dare to 
venture out of Dores, tho : neuer so well clothed, 
except the Lord be pleased to make the Climate 
a little more Temp r ate, which also he is able 
to do?' 

How gratefully his heart is moved at the in- 
telligence of his daughter Frances's conversion. 

" That which you write concerning Deare Frank 
I cannot read without teares, not of griefe but of 
Joy, for I have no greater joy than to heare that 
your children walk in the truth, as St. John speakes 



254 THE THREE JUDGES. 

(Epi : 3) to Gaius. And tho : as you write we 
must be contented tho : we cannot as yet experience 
that in his 2 Epistle, ver. 12 yet it is matter of 
great joy and thankfulnes to the Lord that we do 
in the mean time. experience that which he speakes 
in the same Epistle, ver. 4. Now the good Lord 
perfect the good worke he hath begun in her, & 
make it more & more evident to your selfe & 
others of -his people that she is indeed passed 
from Death to life." 

In a subsequent letter, Mrs. Goffe informs him 
of the same daughter's marriage. In respect to 
this he replies , — 

" In a former letter to yourself, when you de- 
sired my thoughts concerning her, I told you 
I was confident the Lord would take care of 
her, and in due time p r vide a Husbande for her, 
and now he hath done it shall I question whether 
he hath done it well ? Noe, I dare not do it. 
It is a greate satisfaction to me that you sought 
the Lord, & tooke Advice of our dear & chris- 
tian friends, & that my sister [daughter] was 
guided in her choyce by yourself & them, & 
desire with you to bless the Lord that hath 
p r vided so welle for her, & shall not cease to 



REMOVAL TO HADLEY. 255 

pray night & day on their Behalf, that t the Lord 
will be pleased to make them greate blessings 
to each other, & that this new condition may 
be every way & allwaies comfortable to them 
boath, for as you very Truely say, it will be as ; 
the Lord shall be pleased to make it. I pray 
remember my most tender & afectionate loue 
to them boath, & tell them that I greatly Long to 
see them ; but since that cannot be at p r sent 
you may assure them that whilst they shall 
make it there great Worke to loue the Lord 
Jesus in sincerity & loue one another dearly 
for Christ his sake, & to cary it with tender 
loue & dutifull Respect to yourself, I shall es- 
teem it my duty to loue & pray & act faith for 
them as if they were my own Children, being 
not otherwise able at this distance to be help- 
full to them." 

He is anxious to know something more of his 
son-in-law's religious character. 

" Deare Mother, I pray in your next, Speake a 
little more fully concerning his Godlines, for you 
say nothing to that, except by the phraise of a very 
Honeste man, .you mean a very Godly man, as I 
hope you doe." 



256 THE THREE JUDGES. 

He adds the following advice to the young 
ceuple : — 

" My pore Sister begins her housekeeping at a 
time when Trading is very lows, and all p r visions 
deare & I cannot but pitty her in that Respecte. 
I hope shee will not be discouradged nor her hus- 
bande neether, but for Pvention I desire them to 
consider seriously and to act faith vpon that most 
excelent Counsel our Lord delivered with authority 
in his Sermon on the mount Mat. 6th, from the 
24 ver. to the ende.of the chapter." 

The same letter brought him also the afflictive 
intelligence of the death of one of his daughters, 
probably the second. But the good man's heart is 
as calm under the stroke of sorrow as the smile 
of joy. 

" Deare Mother, I have been hithertoe congrat- 
ulating my new marryed Sister, but I must now 
turn aside to drop a few Teares vpon the herse 
of her that is disceased, whose losse I cannot chuse 
but lament with teares & so share with you in all 
the P r vidences of God towards us ; but my deere 
Mother let mee not be the ocasion of reneweing 
your Greefe for I doubt not but you have grieved 
enough, if not toe much already. Let us consider 



REMOVAL TO HADLEY. 257 

how graciously the Lord deals with us (as for our 
deare Sister, shee is got beyond our Pitty ; wee 
need not lament for her Sake, but rather rejoyce 
that shee is at rest in the Bosome of Christ) who 
whilst he is taking from vs with one hande gives 
double with the other. He hath added one to your 
Famely on whome I hope you may sette that 
motherly afection as if he were your owne son, — 
& shall we not say with Job the Lord hath given & 
the Lord hath taken : blessed be the Name of the 
Lord." 

Mrs. GofTe's next letter brings mingled joy and 
sorrow, announcing the birth and death of a grand- 
son. How sweetly does he both congratulate with 
and comfort them upon the event ! 

" Deare Mother, it is a greate Comfort to me to 
heare that the Lord was graciously pleased to apear 
on my deare Sister's behalfe in the needful hour, 
and desire with you to bless the Lord for that 
greate Mercy, & I hartily thank you for giving 
me so quick a notice of it. Deare Mother, it 
was likewise a great Mercy that the Lord was 
pleased so far to satisfie your Desire as to make you 
the Joyfull grand-mother of a sonne. And tho : it 
hath pleased the Lord so soon to transplant him 
17 



258 THE THREE JUDGES. 

from the millitent to the tryumphant church yet it 
may be a great comfort to yourself & my deare 
sister that from your wombs hath p r ceeded the 
increase to the misticall body of Jesus Ch : & 
reckon it a mercy that the Lord being purposed 
to take him from you in his infancie was pleased 
(that it might be the more easy to you) to do it be- 
fore it had much time to take deep Roote in your 
affections, for I doe believe the longer yourselves & 
his other Relations had injoyed him, the harder it 
would have beene to us all to have parted with 
him : But what shall we say more ? It may b.e 
such considerations as these are too selfish ; it is 
enough to compose the harts of the Children of 
God vnder every P r vidence to say it is the Lord 
hath done it, our louing & tender harted infinitely 
wise Father hath declared his royall pleasure, & 
it is our duty to submit to it, yea to rejoyce 
in it." 

For his surviving unmarried daughter he sends 
a father's remembrance. 

" I pray remember my deare loue to sister Ju- 
dith, & tell her from me she must now be a very 
good child, & labour to know the God of her father, 
& serve him with a perfecte hart & with a wiling 



REMOVAL TO HADLEY. 259 

Minde, I Chr. 18. 9. & leaving to greeva^for her 
sister & Nephew that are at reste with God strive 
with all her might to be a comfort to her pore af- 
flicted mother, who is contesting with the difficul- 
ties & temtations of an evill world." 

He adds a gentle caution to his wife against in- 
dulging an excess of sorrow. 

" I thank you for what you have written concern- 
ing those Relations I desired to heere of, & the 
rather because you say you cannot write much 
through the weaknesse of your eyes, & I fear it 
may hurt them to read these long letters. I be- 
seech you to remember that weak eyes are made 
weaker by too much weeping. Pray, take heede 
you doe not hurt yourself thereby." 

Can anything be finer in its way than the follow- 
ing bit of pleascuitry ? 

• "Now my Deare Mother, give me leave in a 
Postscript to be a little merry with you, & yet 
serious too. There is one word in one of your 
Letters that sounds soe harshly & looks soe un- 
towardly that I cannot tell well how to reade or 
look vpon it, & I know not how to write it, & yet I 
must, tho : I crosse it out again. I suppose you doe 
by this time sufficiently wonder what will follow ; 



26o THE THREE JUDGES. 

but thewnatter is this. After you had given mee 
a louing account of a busines wherein you have 
clone your best, you were pleesed to say, that 
if I should be angry you had many to bear 
with you &c. Rash anger, I confess, is a bur- 
then that needs more Shoulders than one to 
bear it, for Solomon saith a stone is heavy & 
the sand weightie but a fool his wrath is heavier 
than them boath. But oh, my deare mother 
how could you fear such a thing from me ? 
Yourself knoweth I never yet spake an angry 
worde to ' you, nay I hope I may say, without 
taking the Name of God in vaine, the Lord 
knoweth I never" conceaved an angry thought 
towards you, nor doe I now, nor I hope never 
shall. And in so saying' I doe not commend 
myself, for you never gave mee the least Cause, 
neether have you now, & I beleeve never will. 
Therefore, Deare Mother, the whole praise be- 
longs to yourself or rather to the Lord who, 
blessed be his Name, hath so vnited our harts 
together in loue that it is a thing scarse pos- 
sible to be angry one with another. But I 
shall now conclude with a Request that you will 
not be angry with yourself for writing that 



REMOVAL TO HADLEY. 26 1 

worde I have spoken so much against, for I 
suppose all your meaning was, if I should not 
altogether approve- of what was done, &c. And 
I am abundantly satisfied that the roote from 
which that fear sprung was tender loue, & that 
you speake your hart when you say you loue & 
honer me as much as ever, which may well 
increase my longings after you, for the exceed- 
ing grace of God in you. Now thanks be vnto 
God -for his vnspeakeable Gift, 2 Cor. 9. 14. 15." 

These tender assurances of her husband were 
fully responded to by the devoted wife. 

" My dear, I know you are confident of my 
affection; yet give me leave to tell thee, thou 
art as dear to me as a husband can be to a 
wife, and if I knew anything that I could do 
to make thee happy, I should do it, if the Lord 
would permit, though to the loss of my life." 

Times' of revolution develop noble women, 
as well as heroic men, and none nobler adorn 
the pages of history than those who thus bore 
uncomplainingly the hardships of that period. 
Their courage strengthened the hearts of those 
who 'served in the -field, or languished in prison 
or in exile ; their sweetness and piety gave a charm 



262 THE THREE JUDGES. 

to domestic life, and were perpetuated in the 
virtues of their children. Their memories should 
be cherished as among the richest treasures that 
have come down to us from the generations of the 
past. 

It is often alleged that these stern Puritans, 
who scrupled not to take the life of their king, 
were iron men, destitute of feeling, and especially 
that they were intolerant toward those .who dif- 
fered from them in religious opinion. To those 
who think thus, we commend the following let- 
ter of Goffe's, pleading for mutual charity and 
concession among Christians. It is dated Au- 
gust, 1671, but the address is wanting; so that 
we are ignorant of the precise occasion to which 
it refers. Its beautiful and tender spirit, how- 
ever, can not be mistaken. 

"As for the things wherein you differ, Alase, 
Dear Sirs, tho : Blessed be God, you are feed- 
ing with Christ among the lilies, yet it is night, 
& a dark night too, wherein both your selves 
& the S ts [saints] elsewhere are conflicting with 
stormes & foggs, whilst dangerous rockes & 
sands are lying on both hands of you, and 
(with them in Paull's shipp) you are Wishing 



REMOVAL TO HADLEY. 263 

for the day ; have patience therefore one with 
another untill the Day breake, and the shad- 
dowes flee . away. Then shall you behould the 
Lamb standing vpon Mount Syon, & ruleing in 
the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the 
name of the Lord his God," etc. 

" Postscript. You have another freind yet alive 
[Whalley] that desires to give his hearty Amen to 
these weake Breathings after love & peace among 
Bretheren, and commend to your meditation that 
sweet scripture : Psall : 133. tot. 

" Since the writeing of thes poor lines, I have 
pervsed the Reuer d [Synod's] preface to the plate- 
form of Discipline agred vpon in the year 1649, 
(not remembring that I euer read it till now) and 
cannot but be much affected with what they vrge 
with respect to there Brethren of Differing Judge- 
men 13 in England & Scotland in refference to a 
Brotherly forbearance one of another in disputable 
things, not only fro the Scriptures but their own 
example, & the evill consequences that were likely 
to ensue to the churches, both in O : & N : E., by 
their Divisions, and do heartily wish that your- 
selves may be now moved to attend therevnto, not 
onely by the example of these your worthy prede- 



264 THE THREE JUDGES. 

cessors, but also by the sad examples of those 
Brethr 11 of whom they then spake, whose contin- 
ued Divissions haue since brought vpon them in 
a great measure the Distraction & Destruction 
of all the churches in both Nations, which, (as it 
were with a propheticall spirit) that Reuer d Synod 
did then forewarn them of. But my sp { faileth me 
& my heart is overwhelmed within me, while I am 
lookeingvpon the languishing spouse : I must there- 
fore turn me, & poure out my soul to her Dear 
Lord. Oh, Blessed Lord Je : shee whom thy soul 
loveth is sick, yea, so sick, that many of her phe- 
sitians & ffreinds that stand weeping about her, say 
there is no hope ; others indeed say there is yet 
some hope : But O thou the Hope of Israeli ; and 
is this thy mournfull voyce, (oh Blessed spouse) 
vttered from the clifts of the rock & secret places 
of the staires, so sweet to Christ ? as he is graciously 
pleased to say it is, vers. 14, Oh then, How will 
thy heart ere long be ravished with his joyfull 
voyce when he shall come to call thee out of those 
clefts and say vnto thee, Rise vp my love, my faire 
one & come away," etc. 

" Oh that our Hearts were inflamed with love ! 
for tho : many waters cannot quench love, yet I 



REMOVAL TO HADLEY. 265 

am assured that were the Hearts of Christians 
inflamed with sincear loue to Christ, and all the 
saints, it would certainly drink vp & consume 
many waters, even those Bitter waters of strife 
which are so apt to arise in every society. I 
shall therefore conclude with that well-known 
(oh, that it were as well practised) exortation of 
the apostle, Finally, Bretheren, farewell. Be per- 
fect, be of good comfort, be of one minde, Live 
in peace and the God of Love and peace shall 
be with you. 2 Cor. 13. 1 1." 

A single extract from one of GofTe's letters 
to his wife will afford a specimen of his method 
in expounding and applying the prophecies of 
Scripture. After alluding to the fearful judg- 
ments, which were, as he believed, about to be 
launched upon England and her colonies, he 
proceeds : — 

"But He that hath His right foot upon the sea 
& his left foot upon the land will so overrule all 
these motions that the issue of them shall be the 
advancem 4 of His own kingdo in the ruin of 
Antich : [antichrist] and his adherents. It shall 
be known that He is the Govern 1 " among the 
nations. Psa : 22, 28, & that the Kingdoms of 



266 THE THREE JUDGES. 

this world are the Kingdoms of our Lord & 
his Christ ; and tho : the nations be never so 
angry at it, He will take to Himselfe His great 
power, & reigne, Rev: II, 15, 16, 17, 18; and 
the 24 Elders (that is, the members of the true 
gospel church) that sit vpon their seates, shall 
fall vpon their faces & congratulate His majesty ; 
for in that day there shall be the shout of a King 
among them. But this place makes me some- 
times to feare, that at the first sounding of the 
7th Trumpet the churches may by reason of 
the foregoing tryalls be very much stript of their 
officers, or at least many of them. Because I 
find in this place, & no other in the whole booke 
of the revelation the publick worship of God 
celebrated by the Elders onely, heres no mention 
of the 4 Beastes (which are the ministers & of- 
ficers of the churches). Why whats become 
of the 4 Beastes, that should be the leaders in 
the publick worship, as you may see Rev. 4, 9, 10. 
Surely think I, The gr* storme that was imediately 
to precede the 7th Trumpet hath driven them 
into sorrows & some way or other devided them 
from there congregations, that they are not at 
hand, in an orderly way at least, as officers, to 



REMOVAL TO HADLEY. 267 

celebrate the prayses of the Lambe att the first 
Blast of the 7th Trumpet, & what you write 
of the losses the churches & peo. of God have 
lately sustayned of that kind, & the Difficulty 
of getting men duely qualified to succeed in the 
rome of those taken away, doth not a little increase 
these my apprehensions. But I am againe p r swad- 
ed fro Chapt.. 14, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, that these Breaches 
shall soone after the sounding of the 7th Trump : be 
made up, for that chapter carying on the history 
of trie Church fro.: thence where the nth ended, 
it appeares plainly that a little after the sounding 
of the 7th Tr. the Lambe shall stand upo Mount 
Syon (that is in a firm, stable condition, &c.) with 
his 144000 ; & then the Breaches made upon 
the churches shall be made up. There eyes shall 
see their Teachers, as* it is Esa : 30, 20, & then 
they shall sing a new song before the throne, & be- 
fore the 4 Beasts & the Elders, ver : 3, now that the 
14th chapter begins where the 1 ith ends may thus 
appeare, for tho : the 12. & 13 chapters come be- 
tween, yet they have the same ending with the 1 1 th 
for the 12 chapter is a breefe repetitio" of the 
whole state of the.ch ch from the primitive times till 
about the slaying of the witnesses, or the end of 



268 THE THREE JUDGES. 

the 1.260 dayes of the woman's being in the wilder- 
nes : and the 13th chapt. treats of the. rising 
of the Beast (that is Antich :) & his 42 m° reigne 
& making warr with the saints, during which time 
he makes the 2 witnesses prophesy in sack cloth 
1260 dayes, & and at last overcomes & slays them, 
of which the nth chapter speakes, upon whose 
riseing & assending after a great earthquake, the 
kingdom of the Beast shall be noumbred & finished, 
& thereupon the 7th Trump 1 sounding O r L d 
Jesus takes to himselfe his gr* power & reignes, so 
that the nth 12th & 13th chapters seem to have 
all one & the same. ending, bringing the story both 
of the church & of Anti-christ into the period 
from whence the 14th chapt. doth proceed : But 
a little time may make these things more plaine." 




CHAPTER XIII 



DEATH OF WHALLEY AND GOFFE. 




O passed the tedious years away in cor- 
respondence, in the study of the sacred 
prophecies, which filled them with the 
hope of a brighter day about to dawn, and on the 
part of Goffe in ministering with filial devotedness 
to the wants of his venerated and now feeble com- 
panion. A very few friends were admitted to their 
seclusion, — among them their good host Mr. Rus- 
sell, his neighbor Mr. Tilton, Governor Leverett, 
who resided in the village, and perhaps others. It 
was yet unsafe for them to be known, there being 
persons ever ready to gather up every item of news 
that would bear against the colonies, and send it to 
their enemies in England, 

Whalley's death occurred first, but precisely 
when is not known. The last mention of him as 



27O THE THREE JUDGES. 

living is made in Goffe's letter to his wife, dated 
August 6, 1674. 

" Your old friend [her father] is yet living, but 
continues in that weak condition of which I have 
formerly given you account, and have now not 
much to add. He is scarce capable of any rational 
discourse, his. vnderstanding, memory, and speach 
doth soe much faile him, and seems not to take 
much notice of any thing that is either done or 
said, but patiently hears all things, and never 
complains of any thing, — Indeed he scarce ever 
speakes any thing but in anser to questions when 
they are put to him, which are not of maay kinds, 
because* he is not capable to answer them. The 
common and very frequent question is to know 
how he doth, and his anser for the most part is,. 
1 Very well, I praise .God,' which he vtters with a 
very lowe and weake voice. But sometimes he saith 
• Not very well,' or • Very ill ; ' and then if it be fur- 
ther said, • Do you feel any pain any where ?' — to 
that he always answereth us. When he wants any 
thing he cannot well speake for it, because he for- 
gets the name of it, and sometimes asks for one 
thing when he means another, so that his eye or 
his finger is oftentimes a better Interpreter of his 



DEATH OF WH ALLEY AND GOFFE. 27 1 

minde than his tongue ; but his ordinary wants are 
so well known to us that most of them are supplied 
without asking or making signs for them, and some 
help he stands in need of in every thing to which 
any motion is required, having not been able of a 
long time to dress or vndress himself, nor to feed 
or ease nature either way, orderly, without helpe. 
And it's a great mercy to him that he hath a friend 
that takes pleasure in being helpful to him ;. and I 
bless the Lord that gives me such a good measure 
of health and strength, and an opportunity and 
heart to use it in soe good and necessary a worke. 
For tho : my helpe be but pore and weake, yet that 
ancient servant of Christ could not well subsist 
without it, and I doe believe, as you are pleased- to 
say very well, that I doe enjoy the more health for 
his sake." 

His death must have occurred not many months 
later, and his burial took place behind the wall of 
the cellar in Mr. Russell's house. It has been a 
popular belief at New Haven that the bodies of 
Whalley and Goffe were both removed, thither, and 
buried in their ancient graveyard -beside that of 
Dixwell, and President Stiles gathers whatever of 
tradition and fact goes to confirm that opinion. It 



272 THE THE.EE JUDGES. 

is in consequence of this that the old stones marked 
E. W. and M. G.-have been supposed to be theirs, 
and were not removed with the other monuments 
to the newer cemetery. 1 But in the- case of Whal- 
ley, certainly, this is a mistake. Not only does 
tradition at Hadley uniformly represent him as 
buried there, but the remains themselves were 
actually discovered in 1795, during some repairs 
which were being made upon the ancient parson- 
age. The following account of the event is taken 
from Judd's History of Hadley : — 

" In taking down the mid part of the front wall 
next to the main street, the workmen discovered, 
about four feet below the top of the ground, a place 
where the earth was loose, and a little search dis- 
closed flat stones,, a man's bones, and bits of wood. 

1 It was supposed that the inscriptions on these stones 
were designed to mislead, and thus save the graves from 
being desecrated by the British government, as- the graves 
of the regicides in England had been. Hence the date of 
the E W stone was so cut as to be read either 1658'or 1678. 
The M on the smaller stone, with a broad stroke under it, 
might stand for an inverted W, thus making the initials of 
William Goffe. This theory is now, we believe, entirely dis- 
carded. The real persons buried here are thought to be 
Edward Wigglesworth and Matthew Gilbert, the latter the 
well-known colonial governor. 



DEATH OF WH ALLEY A'ND GOFFE. 273 

Almost all the bones were in pieces, but one thigh 
bone was whole, and there were two sound teeth. 
Dr. S. K. Rogers, who then resided in Hadley, exam- 
ined the thigh bone, and said it was the thigh bone 
of a man of large size. This and the other bones 
were laid on a shelf, and in a short time they all 
crumbled into small pieces, and were not preserved. 
No other grave was found behind the cellar wall. 
The flat stones, from their position, were apparent- 
ly laid upon the top of the coffin."- 

In the autumn of 1675 occurred the famous 
King Philip's war, which was so terrible to the 
infant colonies of New England. Hadley, being 
one of the frontier towns, was greatly exposed. 
An attack by the Indians was made upon the vil- 
lage on a public Fast day, while the inhabitants 
were assembled for worship. At that time it was 
the custom in all exposed places for the men to go 
to the meeting-house armed, in order to be prepared 
to repel at once any savage invasion. But the 
suddenness of the attack threw the villagers into 
confusion, and little was done effectively to drive 
away the enemy. Just then there appeared among 
them a stranger of commanding presence, and in a 
dress unlike what was generally worn, who assumed 
18 



274 THE THREE JUDGES. 

direction of affairs. He arranged the men who had 
arms in military array, and made a charge upon 
the Indians at the head of the company. Im- 
mediately the savages were routed, and put to 
flight, and then their leader disappeared as sud- 
denly as he came. Who he was nobody knew. 
The townsmen were so much impressed with the 
occurrence, that they came to the conclusion that 
an angel had been sent from heaven for their deliv- 
erance. Some years afterward they learned that 
their unknown leader was Colonel Goffe. His 
military skill and habit of command had enabled 
them to use their strength to the best advantage, 
and the little settlement was saved. 

But though the town was for the time relieved, 
it was not out of danger. Three weeks later oc- 
curred the fight at Bloody Brook, between Deer- 
field and Hadley. Captain Lothrop and a party 
of soldiers were escorting a number of teams, con- 
veying wheat to the latter place, when they were 
attacked by a body of seven or eight hundred sav- 
ages,_and nearly the whole number were slain. A 
re-enforcement sent from Deerfield arrived too late 
for their relief, and were themselves compelled to 
sustain the assault of the whole body of Indians, 



DEATH OF WHALLEY AND GOFFE. 275 

until another re-enforcement of a hundred and sixty 
men, under command of Major Treat, of Connecti- 
cut, came up, when the savages were put to flight. 
This was the well-known magistrate of Milford, 
who had befriended the judges in the court at New 
Haven fourteen years before. Did he now manage 
to call on his surviving friend in his Hadley re- 
treat, and talk over the incidents of this long period 
of separation and solitude ? 

With this exception of Goffe's appearance at the 
head of the armed townsmen on the Fast day, — an 
event which seems to be well substantiated by 
early and unwavering tradition, — nothing more is 
certainly known of him after the death of his aged 
father-in-law. Whether he remained in Hadley or 
not, when he died, and where he was buried, are all 
matters that are covered by the pall of oblivion. 
Tradition has always reported that while one of 
the judges died in Hadley, and was buried in the 
minister's cellar, the other departed to escape the 
inquisitorial researches of Edward Randolph, and 
was supposed to have gone to Virginia, or some 
other distant region, and was heard of no more. 
There are a few facts which seem to confirm this 



276 THE THREE JUDGES. 

tradition, and indicate that Goffe removed to Hart- 
ford, and spent the last years of his life there. 

Randolph came to New England in 1676. He 
was sent over to be a spy upon the colonies, and 
gather up whatever their enemies might use to 
their disadvantage at court. He returned gen- 
erally in the fall with his budget of evil reports, and 
in the spring or summer came back plotting new 
mischief. For several years he was the bane and 
terror of New England. At some time during 
this period he heard rumors of the secretion 
of the judges ; but his inquiries after them were 
baffled. In 1683 fte came with special instruc- 
tions to search for them, but they were both 
already dead. It is evident, therefore, that about 
the time of Whalley's death the danger of their 
discovery was increased, and this may have been a 
good reason why Goffe should have left a place 
where he had been so long, and retire to a new 
retreat, where he had never been suspected to be. 

Various allusions in his correspondence after 
that time coincide with this assumption. In a 
letter to Dr. Increase Mather, of Boston, dated 
"Ebenezer, September 8, 1676/' he says, "I was 
greatly behoulding to Mr. Noell for his assistance 



DEATH OF WI1ALLEY AND GOFFE. 2JJ 

in my remove to this Town. I pray if he be yet 
in Boston remember my affectionate respects to 
him." It docs not seem probable that the removal 
referred to was that of Whalley and himself from 
Milford to Hadlcy twelve years before. Besides, 
in that case the language would naturally have 
been our removal, not my. The fair inference is, 
that at the time of writing Goffe had recently gone 
to a new residence. 

In the same letter he writes, " I have received 
the letters from England that you inclosed to M r * 
Whiting." And again, October 23, 1678, " I should 
take it as a great kindnesse to receive a word from 
you, if you please to inclose it to M r * Whiteing, 
onely with this short direction (These for M r * T. D.) 
I hope it would come safely." This Mr. Whiting 
was doubtless Rev. Samuel Whiting, one of the 
ministers of Hartford at that time. " T. D." were 
the initials used by himself in his letters to Dr. 
Mather, and were evidently well known to Mr. 
Whiting! The inference seems almost unavoid- 
able that the latter gentleman was made the 
medium of transmitting Goffe's letters in con- 
sequence of living near and being intimately ac- 
quainted with him. 



2?S THE THREE JUDGES. 

Still more conclusive is a letter to Goffe from 
Mr. Peter Tilton, of Hadley, dated July 30, 1679. 
" Yours, which I cannot but mention, dated M ch 
18: 'yS, I receaued, crying howe wellcome and 
refreshing to my poore unworthye selfe (which as 
an honeycombe, to use your owne similitude, full 
of pretious sweetenes), I would you did but knowe, 
being a semblance or representation of what some- 
time though unworthye I had a ffuller ffruition 
of," i. e., a renewing of the pleasure of personal 
communication which formerly he had enjoyed, 
implying that now, in consequence of his removal, 
this privilege had ceased, and intercourse between 
them must be by writing. Mr. Tilton proceeds : 
" I have here sent you by S. P. tenn pounds, 
haveing not before a safe hand to convey it, it being 
a token of the love and remembrance of severall 
friends who have you uppon their hearts." Then, 
after mentioning certain news lately received from 
England, he says, "which I presume Mr. Russell 
hath given you a full account of, as understanding 
he hath written to Hartford, that I neede not 
tautoulogize in that matter," — i. e. repeat it. This 
seems very decisive, not only that Goffe was not 
now in Hadley, where he had been so long a 



DEATH OF WHALLEY AND GOFFE. 279 

near neighbor to Tilton, but also that he was in 
Hartford, where Mr. Russell, the pastor of Had- 
ley, had just before written to him. 

There is still another item of evidence to the 
same effect, which, if standing alone, would not 
seem to be worthy of much reliance, but which, 
supported as it is by the above passage in the cor- 
respondence, has considerable weight. In April, 
1680; one John London, formerly of Windsor, made 
an affidavit, that Goffe, under the name of " Mr. 
Cooke," had been secreted for several years in 
Hartford, in the house of Captain Joseph Bull, 
where he was seen by the deponent in May, 1679 ; 
that the latter, with another person, had taken 
measures to seize and send him to New York, 
but had been prevented by Major Talcott and 
Captain Allyn from so doing, etc. 

This information was sent by Sir Edmund 
Andross, then Governor of New York, to the 
Governor and Assistants of Connecticut, who im- 
mediately issued a warrant for searching the prem- 
ises of Captain Bull and his sons, and other 
places. This was done, but the constables re- 
ported that they could find neither " Mr. Cooke " 
nor any other suspected person. Secretary Allyn 



280 THE THREE JUDGES. 

therefore wrote to Governor Andross, stating the 
result of the search, and requesting to know who 
had been the informer, saying also that the loyal 
people of - Hartford were much abused by such 
false reports. 

Of 'course the failure to find the suspected 
person is no evidence that he was not, or had 
not been, in that town. A vigilance which had 
preserved his secret so many years would be little 
likely to be surprised at that late day, even if 
notice of the search had not been clandestinely 
given in advance. While, therefore, it can not be 
regarded as certain, it does seem to us highly 
probable that the last few years of the life of 
this patriot exile were spent in Hartford ; and if so, 
that he probably also died and was buried there. 

The date of that event can be given only ap- 
proximately. GofFe's last letter to Dr. Mather was 
dated April 2, 1679, an d that of Mr. Tilton, already 
cited, July 20 of the same year. These are the 
last discoverable traces of him on record. . We 
shall not probably err greatly if we assign his 
decease to that or the following year. 

So, at length, the wanderers reached home, the 
weary were at rest. The malice of their enemies 



DEATH OF WHALLEY AND GOFFE. 251 

could no more molest them, nor the sorrows of 
their friends or the woes fallen upon their beloved 
country disturb their repose. They sleep in the 
dust of New England, among a people who have 
become great and prosperous under the sway of 
those principles for which they acted and suffered. 
May their names and their virtues be cherished 
among us while the nation itself shall remain. 







CHAPTER XIV 



DIXWELL. 




BOUT the year 1670 there came to New 
Haven a stranger of grave and dignified 
appearance. He was apparently a little 
above sixty years of age, tall, with a military bear- 
ing, and the air and manners of a gentleman. 
He was very quiet, and even retiring, in his habits, 
not inclined to be communicative respecting him- 
self, though evidently a person of education and 
intelligence, and once familiar with the higher 
circles of society. He soon became known as 
eminent for devout piety, and was highly esteemed 
by the leading men of the church and the town. 

Having no family of his own, he found a home 
at the house of a Mr. Ling, who lived in what was 
then a retired part of the place, on the corner of 
College and Grove Streets, as they are now called. 
Mr. Ling and his wife were old people, without 

282 



DIXWELL. 283 

children, and were doubtless pleased to have 
the presence of a gentleman of so much cultiva- 
tion and excellence in their family. 

Mr. Davids — for so the stranger called himself 
— engaged in no regular occupation, but seemed to 
have resources sufficient to meet his very limited 
wants without carrying on any business. He 
received « occasionally letters from abroad, which 
it was supposed contained remittances from rela- 
tives or friends. His time was occupied chiefly 
in reading, in solitary walks in the fields and 
groves adjacent to the town, and in social inter- 
course with the few families of the place with 
whom he had formed an intimate acquaintance. 
Friday of each week he was accustomed to 
devote to fasting and religious exercises. At that 
time fasts were far more frequently practiced than 
at present, and they were kept with great strict- 
ness. The reader of English history is struck with 
the recurrence of these exercises in the proceed- 
ings of the parliament, and other persons in 
authority, and even in the army, especially on 
occasions of unusual interest and importance. 
And they were fasts indeed, not, as is so generally 
the case now, seasons in. which, under the pretense 



284 THE THREE JUDGES. 

of religious observances, the day is devoted to 
idleness or amusement. 

To very few, probably, of the people of New 
Haven was it known that this quiet, gentlemanly 
stranger had been one of the brave and stern 
judges of King Charles, a companion in deeds, and 
now a companion in exile, of the hunted fugitives 
who had found shelter in that colony ten years 
before. First among those few, of course, was Mr., 
now Deputy-Governor, Jones, the fast friend and 
benefactor of Whalley and Goffe. He had been 
personally acquainted with Colonel Dixwell in 
London, and undoubtedly now renewed their 
acquaintance with all the interest growing out 
of the stirring events of the past, and all the 
respect due to one who had been- a sharer in 
them with his own father. Other families where 
he would be welcomed were those of Mr. James 
Heaton, one of the Assistants, who lived next door 
to Mr. Ling, Deputy-Governor James Bishop, long 
Secretary of the colony ; Dr. Nicholas Augur, an 
eminent physician, etc. 

Rev. Mr. Davenport had before this gone to 
his rest. He had, in 1667, been called to be pastor 
of the first church in Boston, to succeed Rev. Mr. 



DIXWELL. 285 

Wilson, who had just died there. His great 
abilities caused him to be selected to fill that 
pulpit, the most important at that time in New 
England; and though already in advanced years, 
he accepted the call, to the great grief of his flock 
at New Haven. His ministry in Boston was, 
however, brief, for he died there March 15, 
1670, aged seventy-two. " He was," says Cotton 
Mather, " a prince of preachers, and worthy to 
have been a preacher to princes ; he had been 
acquainted with great men and great things, and 
was great himself, and had a great fame abroad 
in the world." After his removal, Rev. Mr. Street, 
who was installed colleague with Mr. Davenport 
in 1658, remained sole pastor of the church till he 
died in 1674. He was a man worthy to be Daven- 
port's associate, though probably of less shining 
talents, and with him Colonel Dixwell maintained 
the most intimate friendship till his death. He 
appointed the colonel — " Mr. James Davids " — 
and Dr. Augur assistants to his wife, as executrix 
to his will. 1 

1 The following extracts from Mr. Street's will may interest 
our readers : — 

" Item, I give to my four children, Samuel, Susanna, Sarah, 



286 THE THREE JUDGES. 

Mr. " Davids " seems to have won the entire 
confidence of the good people with whom he lived, 
insomuch that at Mr. Ling's death, in 1673, the 
latter " requested him to assist and take care of 
his wife, and recommended her to be kind to 
him." So weighty a charge must have borne 
seriously on the consciences of both, and as Mr. 
Davids afterward said, he saw no way in which 
it could so well be performed as by himself taking 
the place of their departed friend. So, a few 
months after, November 3, 1673, Mrs. Joanna 
Ling became Mrs. Joanna Davids, alias Dixwell, 
their friend, Mr. Assistant Bishop, officiating on 
the occasion. At that day, and for some years 
afterward marriages in New England could be 
solemnized only by civil magistrates. So great 
had been the oppressions of the spiritual courts 

and Abia, five pounds a piece, in silver. Item, I give to my 
grandchild, SamuelStreet, my silver drinking bowle. Item, 
I give to my* daughter, Sherman [Abia], my silver wine 
bowle. And I also give a silver spoon a piece to my other 
two daughters. Item, I give to my grandchild, Hannah 
Andrews, a five shilling piece, in silver. Item, I give unto 
my loving wife any two books she will desire of mine, and to 
my three daughters each, one of Dr. Preston's books. The 
rest of my books I give unto my son, Samuel, and also my 
clock, after my wife's decease," etc. 



DIXWELL. 287 

in the mother country, that the early colonists 
debarred ministers from all powers and responsi- 
bilities of the kind. 

The new connection was, unhappily, of but 
very brief continuance, Mrs. Davids living only 
about two weeks after the marriage. Mr. Ling 
had given her all his property, and as she had 
no heirs, the house and estate came to her husband. 
The inventory amounted to nine hundred pounds, 
which was quite a handsome property for those 
times. It is presumed that Colonel Dixwell had 
never married before ; at least no mention is made 
of his ever having had a family in England. 

After remaining a widower nearly four years, he 
married a Miss Bathsheba Howe, October 23, 1677, 
a lady thirty-three years of age, by whom he had 
three children: Mary, born June 9, 1679; John, born 
March 6, 1681; and Elizabeth, born July 14, 1682. 
Mary married Mr. John Collins, of Middletown, 
Conn., and became the ancestor of Governor 
John Collins, of Rhode Island, and other families 
of some distinction in that state and Connec- 
ticut. John Dixwell married a Miss Prout, of 
New Haven, and subsequently removed to Boston, 
where he became deacon and ruling elder in the 



288 THE THREE JUDGES. 

" New North Church," and where he has descend- 
ants of respectability and wealth. Elizabeth, the 
judge's youngest daughter, died in her childhood. 

In 1682, Colonel Dixwell, by appropriate docu- 
ments, made a testamentary disposition of his 
property in England. It appears that his brother, 
Mark Dixwell, before his death, in 1643, na d 
transferred to him his estate, valued at thirteen 
thousand pounds, in trust for his children, out of 
which were to be paid to them certain specified 
sums, as they should be married or come of age, 
amounting in the aggregate to the said valuation ; 
the colonel acting also as their guardian. This 
was faithfully done — the moneys were paid as 
stipulated, and the estate carefully improved for 
seventeen years, until 1660, when he was obliged 
to flee from the country at the Restoration of 
Charles II. It was then ascertained that the sums 
paid to the children, and expended in improve- 
ments, considerably exceeded the thirteen thousand 
pounds, while, in consequence of increased taxes 
and diminished rents, growing out of the civil 
war, the productive value of the estate had been 
less than his brother had estimated, so that it 
was then in debt to him about two thousand five 



DIXWELL. 289 

hundred pounds. Being now compelled. to leave, 
the colonel gave the estate to his brother's eldest 
son, Basil Dixwell, subject, however, to be revoked 
if he saw fit ; but he omitted to take any note or 
security for the twenty-five hundred prounds due 
him, " being confident," he says, " of my nephew's 
ingenuity [ingenuousness] and honesty in paying 
the same." 

In this confidence, however, he was sadly dis- 
appointed. The nephew appears to have espoused 
the court party, and become a knight, and of 
course had learned to neglect,, if not abuse, his 
generous uncle as a traitor and regicide; at the 
same time, probably, feeling secure in the posses- 
sion of the estate on the ground that his uncle, 
by being attainted of treason, had forfeited the 
right to revoke the gift which he had made. 
"Most ungratefully and injuriously," says the 
judge, "he refused to allow any thing to me for 
this considerable sum [the ^2500], or show any 
respect for the care I had of him, by making 
some provision for me in my afflicted estate" — 
"taking advantage of my condition, and show- 
ing unmercifulness in that they would allow me 
nothing for my present maintenance, that if the 
l 9 



29O THE THREE JUDGES. 

Lord had not extraordinarily provided for me, I 
had perished for want." We are glad to say, how- 
ever, that Sir Basil's sister, Elizabeth, a Mrs. 
Westrow, did not participate in this unkindness, 
but sent to him various sums through the hands 
of Dr. Mather, of Boston, which he gratefully 
acknowledged. He frequently corresponded with 
her under the assumed name of Madam Elizabeth 
Boyse, of London. 

Colonel Dixwell, as did his fellow-exiles, always 
looked forward to another change in affairs at 
home, and believed they should be permitted to 
return there in safety. It is in this expectation 
that we now find him taking measures to reclaim 
his property. " Being confident," he says, "the 
Lord will appear for his people, and the good old 
cause for which I suffer, and that there will be 
those in power again that will relieve the injured 
and oppressed, the Lord having given me op- 
portunity to change my condition, and also given 
me children, I think I am bound to use the best 
means I can whereby they may enjoy what is so 
injuriously kept from me." Accordingly, he re- 
vokes the gift of the estate made twelve years 
before to his nephew, and conveys it by deed to 




City of New Haven in 1790. Page 290. 



DIXWELL. 29I 

his wife and son, John Dixwell. He also executes 
a power of attorney to Mrs. Elizabeth Westrow, 
and her son, Thomas Westrow, to demand of Sir 
Basil, and if refused, to sue for the twenty-five 
hundred pounds due him, together with a just 
allowance for managing the estate during the 
seventeen years, with interest upon both till that 
time. Out of the sums so recovered he directs 
Mrs. Westrow to retain for herself the amount 
she had from time to time sent him, with certain 
legacies for herself and her son, the remainder 
to go to his widow and two surviving children. 
He further commits to them the guardianship 
and education of his children, requesting them 
to send for the family, if they should be willing to 
go to England, and to show the same kindness 
to his wife which they would show to him. He 
adds, " and I do make it my last and great request 
to my said dear niece and cousin Thomas West- 
row, they would bring up my children in the 
knowledge and fear of God." 

These papers were duly recorded in New Haven 
after Judge Dixwell's death ; but it does not appear 
that any measures were taken to carry them into 
effect until 17 10. At that time, John Dixwell, his 



292 THE THREE JUDGES. 

son, went to England, and called upon his cousin, 
but failed of recovering the estate, on the ground, 
it is supposed, that the revocation was invalid, for 
the reason already mentioned. President Stiles 
relates a tradition, however, that a compromise 
was effected by Sir Basil's promising, in case 
that John had a son and called him by his name, 
Basil, he would make him his heir. Such a son 
was born, and so named, but he died unmarried 
in 1746. About the same time the son of Sir 
Basil Dixwell sent over a gratuity in money 
to the family of Dixwell in this country, which 
was divided among them. 

In July, 1685, Rev. James Pierpont was settled 
as pastor of the church in New Haven, between 
whom and the unknown judge soon sprang up 
a warm friendship. " Madam Pierpont," says 
Stiles, " observing and remarking the singular 
intimacy, and wondering at it, used to ask him 
what could be the reason of this intimacy, and 
what he saw in that old man, who was so fond 
of leading an obscure, unnoticed life, that they 
should be so very intimate, and take such pleas- 
ure in being together. For, their house lots be- 
ing contiguous and cornering upon one another, 



DIXWELL. 293 

they had beaten a path in walking across their 
lots to meet and converse together at the fence ; 
and she often wondered why he should be so 
fond of meeting and conversing with that old 
gentleman at the fence. To whom he replied, 
that he understood more about religion, and 
other things, than any other man in the town, 
and that if she knew the worth and value of 
that old man, she would not wonder at it." 

Influenced in part, doubtless, by his regard for 
this yourtg pastor, Mr. Dixwell united as a mem- 
ber in full communion with the church, and by 
his will gave to him Raleigh's History of the 
World, a work which he highly valued, -and had 
perused with great interest. " What Raleigh 
wrote," remarks President Stiles, "for the use 
of the learned world, as well as for his own amuse- 
ment, during a fourteen years' imprisonment, un- 
der condemnation for treason, became the enter- 
tainment of Dixwell during his twenty-eight years 
of exile, under the same accusation and condem- 
nation." 

It is a singular fact, that of the three judges who 
fled to this country, the one who lived most 
openly, and without attempt at concealment save 



294 THE THREE JUDGES. 

an assumed name, was the least molested by the 
royal authorities. The chief reason was, that it 
was entirely unknown in England that Dixwell 
had come hither, the common belief being that 
he had died in Switzerland^ Nevertheless, even 
he was not entirely out of danger. About the 
year 1686, Sir Edmund Andross, who, with other 
enemies of the colonies, was then employed in 
his intrigues to destroy their charters, came to 
New Haven. Attending divine service on the 
Sabbath, it is said that his eye was struck with 
the appearance of a venerable old gentleman, 
whose erect person and military air marked him 
as no common man. After scanning him very 
closely, Sir Edmund inquired who he was. The 
reply was, that he was a merchant, by the name 
of Davids, residing in the town. " No," said he, 
" he is not a merchant. I have seen men, and 
can judge of them by their looks. He has been 
a soldier t and has figured somewhere in a more 
public station than this ! " Mr. Davids, as might 
be expected, did not attend the afternoon service, 
and Andross was too full of his own schemes to 
pursue his inquiries further. 

Tradition reports, likewise, that on this Sabbath 



DIXWELL. 295 

the detested intriguer received a significant intima- 
tion of the esteem in which he was held by the 
good people of the colony. In the course of the 
service, the fifty-second Psalm was given out to be 
sung, which, in the old version of Sternhold and 
Hopkins, then in use, begins thus : — 

" Why dost thou, tyrant, boast abroad, 
Thy wicked works to praise ? 
Dost thou not know there is a God 
Whose mercies last always ? 

Why doth thy mind yet still devise 
Such wicked wiles to warp ? 
• Thy tongue, untrue, in forging lies 
Is like a razor sharp. 

Thou dost delight in fraud and guile, 

In mischief, blood, and wrong ; 
Thy lips have learned the flattering style : 

O false, deceitful tongue I " 

The Psalm was read very distinctly and impres- 
sively,, and sung with appropriate spirit, the lines, 
as was customary; being "deaconed off," i. e., 
repeated two by two before singing. It is not 
very surprising that Andross was highly in- 
censed, believing that the selection was made 
for his personal benefit ; but we are told that 
the good deacon pacified him by the assurance 



296 THE THREE JUDGES. 

that they were accustomed to sing the psalms 
by course. If the offended dignitary really was 
pacified by this excuse, we think the fact com- 
pliments his prudence more than his sagacity. 

In the quiet retreat to which a kind Providence 
had thus consigned him, Colonel Dixwell com- 
pleted his fourscore years, soon after which he 
began to feel the approaches of that disease 
which was appointed to release him at once 
from exile and sorrow. He was taken with 
dropsy, of which he lingered several months 
in much distress of body, but with unruffled 
composure of spirit. In this sickness he was 
assiduously attended by the friends to whom he 
had become so much endeared, and to. these he 
formally disclosed himself in- his true name and 
character, and furnished them the means of iden- 
tifying him to his relatives in England. He 
died on the 18th of March, 1689, in the eighty- 
second year' of his age. 

Two months later, the joyful . news reached 
New Haven of that new revolution which the 
exiles had so constantly and ardently expected, 
and the final expulsion of the oppressive Stuart 



DIXWELL. 297 

dynasty. William and Mary, Prince and Prin- 
cess of Orange, were king and queen of Great 
Britain. But the intelligence came too late to 
gladden the hearts of the judges. Whalley and 
Goffe had been dead some years, and now their 
survivor had also departed. They all believed 
and expected the event, but 

" died without the sight." 

We have before said that all the succeeding 
kings of England had learned something from 
the retribution which his people visited upon 
the first Charles. We should have excepted his 
youngest son, James II., who came t.o the throne 
on the death of his brother, Charles II. He 
seems to have learned nothing ; nay, he added 
the one remaining thing which was possible to 
the crimes of his father and brother. He was 
a bigot, as well as a tyrant and a debauchee. Be- 
sides indulging in all or nearly all the illegal 
practices of the former reigns, he undertook, in 
utter defiance of law, to restore the open ob- 
servance of the Catholic worship. He filled 
his court with priests and confessors, and daily 
celebrated the mass. He carried forward his 



298 THE THREE JUDGES. 

designs with the most arbitrary and high-handed 
violence, aided by such wretches as the bloody 
Judge Jeffries, who hung, butchered, and burned 
alive, thousands of the best men and women 
of the nation. At last his people could endure 
his tyranny no longer. A deputation was sent, 
in the name of a large number of the nobility, 
the clergy, and gentry, to William of Orange, 
who had married the king's daughter Mary, in- 
viting them to come to England and assume 
the government. They accepted the invitation. 
At their approach with a powerful fleet and army, 
James fled, and the parliament declared that he 
had abdicated his throne, and at the same time 
proclaimed William and Mary the joint sover- 
eigns of England. 

Two hundred years have passed away. King, 
parliament, and judges, royalists and republicans, 
have gone to their last account. England has 
become a great empire, which, under the forms 
of monarchy, is in fact a free republic. Her sov- 
ereigns no longer vaunt their prerogative, but 
reign according to the constitution and laws of 
the land, and these every year more nearly ex-" 



DIXWELL. 299 

pressing the will of her thirty-five millions of 
people. New England and her sister colonies 
have become states united in a confederacy more 
extensive and populous than Great Britain itself. 
And in both these empires, foremost among the 
nations of the earth, the principles for which the 
judges contended have become established as funda- 
mental both in government and society. Rulers 
are for the people, and not the people for the rulers. 
Law, to have any binding force upon the con- 
science, must be in harmony with the law of 
God. Freedom to think, to speak, and to act, 
save only that the rights of others are not vio- 
lated, is the inalienable birthright of all men. 
God is the supreme ruler, both of individuals 
and of states, who holds and controls the des- 
tinies of all, and to whom all are responsible. 
All powers, spiritual or secular, which are op- 
posed to him shall perish. Amid all the rev- 
olutions of human affairs he will carry forward 
his own wise and blessed purposes to the grand 
consummation promised, — 

"New heavens, new earth, ages of endless date, 
Founded in righteousness, and peace, and love, 
To bring forth fruits, joy, and eternal bliss." 



300 THE THREE JUDGES. 

In November, 1849, Mr. Dixwell, of Boston, a 
descendant of the judge, obtained permission of 
the authorities of New Haven to erect a fitting 
i monument to his ancestor over his grave. In 
so doing the grave was opened, and the re- 
mains exposed to view. The following account 
of the transaction is abridged from one of the 
New Haven papers of that date : — 

" Yesterday afternoon — November 21st — a spot 
in the rear of the Center Church, on the upper 
Green was excavated to the depth of about two 
feet, over a space of ground about twelve feet 
square, for the purpose of laying the foundation 
of the monument which is about being erected 
to the memory of Colonel John Dixwell, one of 
the renowned judges who caused King Charles 
the First to be condemned and executed. The 
grave was in the north-east corner of the ex- 
cavation, as is indicated by the stone, on which 
were the letters ^ I. D. Esq.' with his age, 82,. 
at the time of his death, 1689. 1 Mr. Dixwell, 
in order to escape the vigilance of his enemies, 
assumed the name of James Davids ; therefore 

1 See the engraving, page 12. 



DIXWELL. 



301 



the initials on his gravestone were appropriate 
for his real or fictitious name. 

"As there was a large crowd about the place 
of interment last evening, it was not deemed a 
fit time to expose the remains of the dead, if any 
should be found after so long a rest in the grave. 
Therefore, for the greater decency and propriety 
of the exhumation, it was ordered that all further 
labor be suspended until an early hour this morn- 
ing. We were among the few witnesses who 
happened to be present when the work of excava- 
tion recommenced. 

" Soon after five o'clock, by the light of a lantern, 
the digging was again begun. The color of the 
earth indicated the exact form of the grave. At 
length the skeleton was reached, and found to be in 
a tolerably good state of preservation — far better 
than was anticipated. The space once occupied by 
• the coffin was very distinctly visible, so that an ac- 
curate measurement was obtained. The size of the 
bottom of the coffin was as follows : Length, five 
feet eleven inches ; breadth at the head and foot, 
each, six inches ; breadth at the bend, twenty-two 
inches. These dimensions would require the top 
to be two inches wider and six inches longer than 



302 THE THREE JUDGES. 

the bottom board, making the length of the top six 
feet five inches, and the breadth two -feet at the 
widest part, and showing the deceased to have 
been, in his lifetime, about six feet in hight, which 
corresponds with tradition in regard to his appear- 
ance in that respect. The bones of the arms 
were lying parallel, instead of being crossed on 
the breast, as is often the case. 

" The remains of the head, as- examined by an 
eminent physician present, exhibited the following 
dimensions. The diameter was twenty and a half 
inches ; across the arch, nine and a half inches ; 
over the arch from forehead back, eleven inches ; 
diameter in the same direction, seven inches ; di- 
ameter over the ear, six and a quarter inches. 
The forehead was not a broad, nor was the head 
a large one for the t size of the person. The diam- 
eter over the ears was large compared with the 
diameter the other way, which indicates a large 
phrenological ' destructiveness,' and this organ, 
which was accompanied by large ' caution/ phre- 
nologists would say, gave the man the energy and 
decision which he must have possessed, and was an 
essential element of his military character. 

"The bones of this brave and persecuted poli- 



MAY .13 1949 



DIXWELL. 303 

tician, military captain, and sectarian were care- 
fully picked up and laid in a small box partly filled 
with earth, and the lid was closed upon them, prob- 
ably forever. The box was then deposited in the 
center of the excavated lot, and the monument will 
stand directly over them. The ceremony of exhu- 
mation was most interesting, and calculated to fill 
the mind with various and conflicting emotions, all 
of which, however, tended to the one idea of human 
frailty — to the fact that such has been and such 
will be the earthly end of man." 




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